^^ 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 
In  Memory  of 


ROBERT  H.  BECKER 


lOtk^^f  "^ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/colonialdaysOOclarrich 


COLONIAL  DAYS 


By  J.  MAX  CLARK 


-V  # 

I    I    i 


i  I 


DENVER 

THE  SMITH-BROOKS  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright  1902 
By  JAMES  MAXWELL   CLARK 


TO 
The  Hon.  JOSEPH  C.  SHATTUCK 

Whom  I  met  as  a  stranger  Colonist,  on  the  steamer,  in 
the  **Big  Muddy"  river,  in  the  spring  of  1870,  coming 
to  the  promised  land  j  whom  I  have  ever  since  known 
as  a  friend,  and  who,  although  he  knows  me  from  A 
to  Z,  and  probably  better  than  does  any  man  now  living, 
still  contrives  to  esteem  me,  this  little  volume  is  affec- 
tionately dedicated. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE. 

PREFACE    7 

CHAPTER    1 9 

JOINING    THE    COLONY. 

CHAPTER  II 18 

THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  PROMISED  LAND. 

CHAPTER  III 28 

THE    ARRIVAL,    AND   FIRST    IMPRESSIONS. 

CHAPTER    IV 32 

AN   EPISODE WE   CELEBRATE. 

CHAPTER   V 39 

PLAIN    LIVING    AND    HIGH   THINKING   IN    HOTEL 
DE   COMFORT. 

CHAPTER    VI 48 

OUR  ONLY  SALOON WE  HAVE  A  TILT  W^ITH  VS^HISKEY. 

CHAPTER    VII 58 

THE  WOMEN  IN  THE  NEW  HOME. 

CHAPTER    VIII 67 

AN  EXPERIMENTAL  PERIOD  AND   HARD   TIMES. 

CHAPTER   IX 75 

SUCCESS    AND   FAILURE. 

CHAPTER  X 84 

THE  HARD  WINTER A  BULL  IN  A  CHINA  SHOP. 


Vi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

CHAPTER  XI 90 

SOME    DEAD-HORSE    REFLECTIONS. 

CHAPTER   Xn 95 

THE    FUEL    QUESTION — HAULING    COAL    UNDER 
DIFFICULTIES. 

CHAPTER    XIII 101 

A   LITTLE   GROUP    OF    MINOR    MEMORIES. 

CHAPTER   XIV 107 

THE  OLD-TIMER  AND  THE  TENDERFOOT. 

CHAPTER  XV 118 

OUR  CLIMATE. 

CHAPTER  XVI 123 

THE  LATE  N.   C.   MEEKER. 

CHAPTER  XVII 136 

PROPHECY  AND  FULFILLMENT 1870   AND   1900. 

CHAPTER  XVIII 141 

BACK  TO  THE  OLD  PLACE. 


PREFACE 

It  is  now  nearly  a  third  of  a  century  since 
the  Union  Colony  was  organized  and  the  set- 
tlement of  Greeley  and  its  immediate  vicinity 
began.  Those  who  actively  participated  in  the 
stirring  scenes  of  that  unique  and  interesting 
movement  are  rapidly  passing  away.  To 
young  or  middle-aged  people,  those  who  were 
born  here  within  the  first  few  years,  or  came 
here  as  children,  there  are  still  indistinct 
memories  of  those  early  days.  But  to  a  large 
majority  now  living  here,  and  to  all  who  came 
at  a  comparatively  recent  date,  the  struggle 
for  an  existence  under  the  adverse  conditions 
of  the  time,  and  all  the  joys  and  sorrows,  the 
hardships,  the  successes  and  failures  con- 
nected with  that  experiment  in  the  desert,  are 
traditions  merely,  and  all  knowledge  of  them 
but  that  preserved  in  the  printed  page  will 
soon  be  lost. 

Scattered  through  the  files  of  the  Greeley 
Tribune  and  embodied  in  articles  from  my 
pen,  contributed  to  its  columns  at  various 
times  as  the  years  flew  by,  there  was  much 
material,  which,  if  gathered  together  and  pub- 
lished in  book  form,  would  perhaps  illustrate 


Viii  PEEFACE. 

the  life  of  that  experimental  period  in  our  his- 
tory, not  better  than  some  other  might  have 
illustrated  it,  but  better  than  any  other  is 
hereafter  likely  to  do  it. 

These  papers  I  saved  at  the  time,  and,  hav- 
ing now  revised,  rewritten  and  rearranged 
them  and  added  some  new  material  as  well,  I 
have  had  the  presumption  to  believe  they  may, 
in  the  form  here  submitted,  gratify  sentiment 
among  surviving  Colonists  and  curiosity 
among  the  newer  population  of  Greeley;  not 
because  I  wrote  of  the  scenes  here  faithfully 
described,  but  because  others  lived  them  in 
the  long,  long  ago. 

Very  respectfully, 


^4h.^,{p^' 


r^ 


Greeley,  Colorado,  February  25,  1902. 


CHAPTER  I. 

JOINING  THE   COLONY. 

Mr.  Meeker's  famous  call  for  the  formation 
of  Union  Colony  found  me  living  in  a  little 
hollow  among  the  hills  and  mountains  of  East 
Tennessee,  whither  I  had  migrated  shortly 
after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War.  I  have  often 
since  then  wondered  why  I  ever  went  down 
there.  I  have  never  questioned  the  motives 
and  the  good  judgment  which  induced  me  to 
come  away.  For  one  inducement  to  go  there, 
however,  I  remember  that  a  number  of  my 
relatives  having  died  with  consumption  up  in 
the  rigorous  climate  of  Wisconsin,  where  I 
was  born,  I  had  thought  to  find  a  warmer  cli- 
mate. I  found  it  more  than  warm.  It  was 
red  hot;  and  all  social  affairs,  politics,  polite 
intercourse  among  neighbors,  and  religion,  as 
well,  seemed  to  take  their  cue  from  the  fiery 
climate  also,  making  the  temperature  too  high, 
in  fact,  for  the  naturally  cool  blood  of  North- 
ern men. 

Three  winters'  and  two  summers'  residence 
in  this  warm  atmosphere  had  not  tended  to 
increase  my  love  for  the  adopted  land.  The 
roads,  to  any  Northern    man,    were    simply 


10  COLONIAL  DAYS. 

abominable.  It  rained  all  winter  and  all  the 
spring,  and  the  small  respite  from  a  well-nigh 
ever-present  flood  occurred  at  a  singularly  in- 
appropriate time,  in  the  growing  summer 
months,  w^hen  the  vegetation  was  in  need  of 
moisture;  and  then  by  a  seemingly  singular 
error  in  supernatural  economy  the  country 
w^as  perennially  visited  by  a  burning  drouth. 

There  were  no  bridges  over  the  small  but 
terrible  streams  of  the  country,  and  the  Obid 
river,  in  particular,  over  which  the  Northern 
mail  had  to  pass,  bringing  in  news  from  the 
outside  world,  w^as  swollen  with  floods  the 
greater  share  of  the  time,  and  not  infrequently 
the  carrier  and  his  "nag"  were  detained  on  the 
wrong  side  of  its  swift-running  waters  for  a 
month  at  a  stretch.  The  river  in  question  was 
not  as  wide  as  the  Poudre,  nor  as  deep  as  the 
ocean,  but,  although  the  country  had  been  set- 
tled more  than  one  hundred  years  the  South- 
ern mind  had  been  unequal  to  its  compass 
with  any  bridge  that  would  stay. 

Not  a  newspaper  was  at  that  time  pub- 
lished in  all  that  section  of  the  country.  I 
was  then  an  ardent  Republican  and  a  sub- 
scriber, of  course,  to  the  New  York  Tribune, 
just  as  my  father  had  been  before  I  grew  to 
man's  estate;  ever  since,  in  fact,  I  could  re- 
member anything  whatever  of  newspapers  or 
books.     There  were  two  other  subscribers  for 


JOINING  THE   COLONY.  11 

the  paper  in  that  county — "Bloody  Fentress" 
county  it  was  called — and  one  of  these  was 
a  gentleman  from  a  foreign  country  at  that. 
But  the  other  was  native  born  and  lived  away 
over  in  the  "piney  woods/'  at  the  farther  end 
of  the  mountain  plateau.  I  often  thought  I 
would  sometime  make  a  special  trip  over 
there  in  order  to  make  his  acquaintance  and 
ascertain  just  what  sort  of  a  crank  Southerner 
he  must  be,  who,  being  born  and  raised  in  that 
illiterate  country,  could  still  take  kindly  to 
the  old  New  York  Tribune  of  that  day  and  gen- 
eration. Force  of  circumstances,  however, 
prevented  the  visit  and  I  have  even  forgotten 
his  name. 

There  were  no  public  or  private  schools  at 
the  time  I  was  there.  The  period  of  "recon- 
struction'^  had,  it  is  true,  left  the  state  of  Ten- 
nessee with  a  fair  school  law,  based  upon  that 
in  force  in  a  majority  of  the  Northern  states; 
but  the  amnesty  act  gave  the  old  conserva- 
tive party  of  the  South  control  of  the  legisla- 
tures once  more,  and  in  just  indignation  for 
the  many  sins  and  extravagances  of  "Carpet- 
bag rule,"  the  legislature  of  Tennessee  re- 
pealed the  one  redeeming  measure  the  exploit- 
ing adventurers  had  instituted  during  their 
temporary  sojourn.  I  said  there  were  no 
schools,  but  there  had  been,  for  only  a  short 
distance  from  my  door  there  still  stood  the 


12  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

massive  frame  of  hewed  logs,  once  in  the 
hoary  past  occupied  as  a  seat  of  learning.  Its 
title,  "The  Mount  Cumberland  Academy/'  had 
evidently  been  conferred  upon  it  by  some  one 
totally  oblivious  of  humor,  or  a  sense  of  the 
ridiculous.  But  both  the  building  and  the  in- 
stitution it  sheltered  had  long  since  gone  to 
decay.  The  floor  had  vanished;  not  even  the 
remnants  of  sash  remained  in  the  openings 
where  the  windows  had  once  been;  even  a 
door  was  lacking  to  keep  out  the  little  flocks 
of  stray  sheep,  which  in  the  summer  retired 
within  its  walls  to  chew  the  cud  and  escape 
the  heat  of  the  noonday  sun.  There  had  been 
a  door  once,  so  Black  Lize,  my  wife's  colored 
servant,  informed  me,  when  I  was  making  in- 
quiries concerning  its  history,  "But  one  day 
indurin'  of  the  wah,"  so  she  said,  "the  white 
folks  had  a  meeting  of  some  kind,  one  evenin', 
and  befo'  long  dey  got  to  quahellin',  and  atter- 
while  one  getlemen  jobbed  another  with  a 
knife  and  killed  him.  Den  dey  didn't  have  airy 
a  sled  or  keart  to  curry  him  home  on  and  dey 
jist  'bleged  to  take  de  doah  down  and  curry 
him  home  on  dat,  and  dey  ain't  no  one  ever 
done  fotch  it  back." 

I  trust  the  reader  will  now  see  that  I  was 
ready  for  a  change  of  residence.  Two  of  my 
three  children,  now  grown  and  with  families 
of  their  own  to  care  for  and  educate,  were  al- 


JOINING  THE   COLONY.  13 

ready  born  to  us  at  the  time,  and  the  prospect 
of  rearing  them  without  the  advantages  of 
good  society  and  good  schools  was  beginning 
to  give  me  uneasiness  as  to  the  future.  In 
particular,  I  remember,  that  the  boy's  lin- 
guistic attainments  were  already  a  matter  of 
astonishment  and  dismay  to  his  parents.  Two 
tow-headed  little  white  playmates,  living  a 
mile  away,  and  one  wooly-headed  little  negro, 
only  at  rare  intervals  visiting  our  side  of  the 
creek,  were  more  than  a  match  for  our  in- 
fluence and  tongues,  and  we  found  ourselves 
likely  to  occupy  the  unenviable  position  of 
the  proverbial  old  hen  watching  her  progeny 
of  ducks  sporting  in  an  element  altogether 
foreign  to  her  powers  of  locomotion. 

Things  were  thus,  when  one  dark,  rainy 
night  in  the  spring  of  1870,  as  I  sat  reading 
my  solace  of  isolated  existence,  the  Tribune^ 
I  came  across  the  well-remembered  notice  to 
those  wishing  to  unite  with  N.  C.  Meeker  in 
forming  the  Colony.  Taking  in  its  import  at 
a  hurried  glance  and  seizing  on  the  outlook  at 
once  as  the  one  avenue  of  feasible  escape  from 
the  environments  of  a  disagreeable  situation, 
I  arose  from  my  chair  with  a  sudden  jump 
and  surprised  my  wife  nearly  out  of  her  wits 
with  the  emphatic  declaration  that  I  had 
"struck  it."  She  wished  to  know  if  I  had  gone 
crazy;  and  when  I  proceeded  to  read  her  the 


■ 


14  COLONIAIi   DAYS. 

proposition,  pronounced  it  perfectly  wild  and 
visionary.  Women  are  constitutionally  op- 
posed to  change,  and  especially  the  change 
involved  in  moving  from  one  place  of  resi- 
dence to  another.  My  wife  had  seriously  op- 
posed the  idea  of  moving  South,  and  I  must 
acknowledge  now  in  looking  backward  that 
this  was  one  of  the  very  serious  blunders 
which  at  one  time  or  another  occur  in  most 
men's  lives.  But  although  my  wife  had  much 
more  reason  to  dislike  the  surroundings  in 
our  new  home  than  had  I,  yet  she  now  bitterly 
opposed  the  ^contemplated  move  to  Colorado. 
However,  having  once  made  up  my  mind  as 
to  what  I  conceived  to  be  best  for  both  of 
us,  I  was  not  deterred  by  so  small  a  matter 
as  a  divided  opinion  in  the  family,  on  the  ad- 
visability of  a  change  of  base,  and  immedi- 
ately sending  the  secretary  of  the  proposed 
colony  the  necessary  sum  of  money  for  mem- 
bership in  its  ranks,  I  shortly  afterwards  sold 
my  "little  upright  farm"  of  sassafras  and 
broom  sedge,  upon  which  I  had  bestowed 
nearly  three  years  of  the  hardest  labor  I  ever 
performed  in  my  life,  in  reclearing,  refencing 
and  reclaiming  it  from  the  ravages  of  war, 
and  then  packing  up  my  household  goods  and 
bundling  my  wife  and  babies  into  my  big  cov- 
ered wagon,  prepared  to  depart. 


JOINING  THE   COLONY.  15 

Then  an  idea  struck  me;  it  might  perhaps 
be  denominated  a  humorous  idea,  similar,  in 
fact,  to  the  one  which  Mr.  Barry  informs  us 
dawned  upon  the  mind  of  "Tammas  Haggart" 
when  looking  at  the  epitaph  on  his  own  tomb- 
stone. Humor,  we  know,  of  a  grim  sort,  is 
often  born  of  stress  of  circumstances,  of  grief 
or  sorrow,  even  of  disappointment,  or  rage,  or 
chagrin.  I  had,  at  some  time  previous  in  my 
short  sojourn  there,  been  involved  in  a  little 
misunderstanding  with  some  of  the  good  peo- 
ple of  the  neighborhood  in  which  I  lived,  and 
during  its  progress  had  been  kindly  informed 
by  others  of  the  less  responsible  voters  of  my 
precinct  that  if  I  did  not  leave  the  country 
"soon"  they  would  fill  my  hide  so  full  of  bullet 
holes  that  it  wouldn't  hold  "shucks;" and  I  had 
expressed  my  determination,  in  reply,  of  re- 
maining with  them  until  I  became  gray  with 
age,  if  I  chanced  to  survive  that  long.  The  "un- 
fortunate difficulty"  had,  however,  been  satis- 
factorily settled,  after  a  time,  and  I  did  not 
come  away  in  the  night,  and  neither  brought 
away  with  me,  nor,  in  so  far  as  I  know,  left 
behind  me  any  ill-will.  But  the  "Carpet-bag- 
gers" from  the  North  had  incurred  the  just  dis- 
pleasure and  hate  of  the  Southern  people, 
among  whom  these  aliens,  many  of  them  ver- 
itable "birds  of  prey,"  had,  while  the  pickings 
lasted,  gone  to  reside.    I  had  not  belonged  to 


16  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

that  class.  I  went  down  there  with  honest  in- 
tent to  make  a  home  and  permanent  residence 
for  myself  and  family,  and  I  had  neither  asked 
for  federal  appointment  before  going  there 
nor  elective  office  while  remaining  there. 
Nevertheless  I  knew  that  in  passing  up 
through  Kentucky  I  should  be  taken  for  one 
who  had  made  himself  unusually  obnoxious, 
and  had  consequently  been  persuaded  to  leave 
the  country.  In  a  way  I  felt  that  I  deserved 
to  share,  on  account  of  kinship,  the  reproach 
justly  due  our  people.  The  paint  pot  and 
brush  with  which  I  had  marked  my  boxes,  sat 
upon  the  threshold  very  soon  to  be  trod  by 
other  feet.  I  seized  them  and  inscribed  in 
good,  plain  characters  across  the  snow  white 
side  of  my  wagon  cover  these  words: 


Baker  and  Clark,  Late 

*  *  Carpet-baggers  ' ' 

**Good-Bye,  Sunny  Southern  Clime' 


Then  over  the  clay  hills  and  through  the 
narrow  valleys  of  Northern  Tennessee  and  the 
knob  lands  of  Kentucky,  through  Columbia 
and  Standf ord  and  Lebanon,  we  trudged  afoot, 
my  brother-in-law  and  I,  beside  our  team,  with 
its  load  of  precious  freight,  entirely  oblivious 


JOINING   THE   COLONY. 


17 


of  the  half-amused,  half-sympathetic  smiles 
of  the  people  we  passed,  wholly  intent  on  other 
scenes,  under  other  skies,  in  a  different  world 
beyond. 


18  COLONIAL    DAYS. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   JOURNEY   TO   THE   PROMISED   LAND. 

Various  incentives  prompted  people  to  join 
the  new  movement.  Some  did  it  for  the  pur- 
pose of  embarking  in  business.  Others  be- 
longed to  the  professional  classes  at  home  and 
intended,  if  opportunity  permitted,  to  engage 
in  professional  callings  here.  Many  more  were 
actuated  by  the  desire  to  own  homes  and  farms 
in  the  new  land.  Some  had  no  definite  end  in 
view.  I  had.  Having  always  been  a  farmer  I 
expected  to  remain  one.  And  so  it  happened  I 
was  one  of  the  very  few  colonists  who  arrived 
on  the  scene  of  action  with  a  good  farm  team. 
However,  several  reasons  induced  me  to  bring 
a  team  with  me  instead  of  buying  one  after  I 
got  here.  I  had  it  and  could  not  dispose  of  it 
at  a  fair  price  there,  and  knew  that  I  would 
have  to  pay  a  high  price  for  as  good  a  team 
here.  Then,  too,  I  lived  a  hundred  miles  from 
the  nearest  railroad,  and  I  had,  in  some  way, 
to  get  there.  Further,  I  had  once  driven  across 
the  plains  and  back,  before  the  completion  of 
the  railroad,  and  was  proposing  after  reaching 
Omaha   to  do  it  again.     Hence  the  covered 


THE    JOURNEY    TO    THE    PROMISED    LAND.  19 

wagon  and  household  goods  and  family,  as  re- 
corded in  the  previous  chapter. 

At  Louisville,  Ky.,  I  sent  my  wife  back  to 
Wisconsin  to  stay  among  relatives  and  friends 
until  Baker  and  myself  had  prepared  a  home 
in  the  promised  land.  Then  we  embarked,  out- 
fit and  all,  on  a  steamer,  and  came  down  the 
Ohio  and  up  the  Mississippi  and  the  Missouri 
river  to  Omaha  city,  from  which  point,  as 
above  stated,  we  intended  to  come  overland 
across  the  plains.  At  some  place  on  the  river, 
in  Missouri,  I  do  not  remember  where,  as  Baker 
and  myself  were  sleeping  in  our  wagon,  on 
deck,  I  was  awakened  from  my  slumbers  in 
the  middle  of  the  night,  by  hearing  some  one 
read  aloud  the  inscription  on  the  side  of  our 
wagon.  There  were  two  or  three  in  the  party 
and  there  followed  a  laugh,  and  I  heard  the 
remark,  "I'll  bet  that  is  a  queer  old  fellow, 
whoever  he  may  be."  It  was  the  Hon.  Joseph 
Shattuck,^  just  then  embarking  on  our  boat, 
bound  for  the  same  place,  and  for  the  same  pur- 
pose as  ourselves,  and  reading  our  destination 
beneath  the  other  inscription,  for  I  had  painted 
that  also,  he  came  around  very  early  next 
morning  to  begin  an  acquaintance,  which  we 
are  now  mutually  agreed,  after  a  lapse  of 
thirty-one  years,  has  been  profitable  and  satis- 
factory, and  hope  with  confidence  that  it  will 
continue  so  to  the  end  of  our  lives. 


20  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

The  Indians  having  just  about  the  time  of 
our  arrival  in  Omaha  shown  a  disposition  to 
make  trouble  on  the  plains,  the  military  au- 
thorities would  not  allow  a  less  number  than 
thirty  persons  traveling  together  to  start 
across  with  teams,  and  not  wishing  to  be  de- 
tained while  so  large  a  party  could  be  secured 
for  the  trip,  our  intention  of  coming  overland 
had  to  be  abandoned.  That  being  decided  upon 
Mr.  Shattuck  and  his  party  left  us  at  Omaha 
and  came  on  in  advance  to  spy  out  the  prom- 
ised land,  while  Baker  and  myself,  having  char- 
tered a  car  in  which  we  placed  our  team  and 
wagon  in  one  end,  and  my  own  and  Mr.  Shat- 
tuck'S  household  goods  in  the  other,  came  on 
with  a  mixed  train  a  day  or  two  later.  We 
were  two  whole  days  in  making  the  trip  from 
Omaha  to  Cheyenne.  Having  arrived  at  the 
latter  place  the  agent  of  the  then  uncom- 
pleted Denver  Pacific  road  proposed  to  charge 
us  fifty  dollars  for  conveying  our  car  to  Gree- 
ley, or  more  than  half  the  amount  for  the  fifty 
odd  miles  distance  between  that  point  and 
this,  that  the  Union  Pacific  road  had  charged 
us  from  Omaha  to  Cheyenne,  a  distance  of 
more  than  650  miles.  But  the  weather  was 
pleasant,  the  roads  fine,  the  country,  in  its 
general  features  familiar  to  me  on  account  of 
my  former  trip  out  w^est,  and  finding  on  inquiry 
that  the  Indians  were  entirely  peaceable,  we 


THE    JOURNEY    TO    THE    PROMISED    LAND.  21 

promptly  rose  to  the  occasion,  unloaded  our 
traps  from  the  car,  set  up  our  wagon,  and 
hitching  on  our  horses  set  out.  We  started 
about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  and  had 
hardly  got  well  out  of  the  city  limits  and  into 
the  great  plain  that  spread  itself  before  us, 
than  Baker  had  an  opportunity  of  witnessing 
his  first  mirage.  Away  ahead  of  us,  at  seem- 
ingly an  enormous  distance  on  the  plains,  there 
lay  before  our  eyes  a  diminutive  lake;  and  in 
the  center  of  the  lake  we  saw  what  we  took  to 
be  a  round,  high  post,  sticking  bolt  upright 
in  the  water.  Baker  speculated  a  good  deal  as 
to  the  purpose  a  post  could  serve  stuck  up  in 
a  pond  in  such  an  out  of  the  way  place,  with 
neither  building  nor  fences  in  sight;  thought 
it  might  possibly  be  a  section  corner,  or  other 
landmark  on  some  big  stockman's  range.  As 
for  myself,  having  formerly  at  one  time  wit- 
nessed many  of  these  deceptions  of  the  plains, 
and  as  a  consequence  become  accustomed  to 
see  "tall  oaks  into  little  acorns  grow,"  I  had 
my  suspicions  that  the  high  post,  so  palpably 
real,  and  so  perfectly  distinct  to  our  vision, 
away  ahead  of  us  there  in  the  shallow  pond  of 
water  in  the  plain,  might,  on  nearer  approach, 
turn  out  to  be  a  hawk,  or  an  owl,  or  a  prairie 
dog.  It  did;  and  we  soon  witnessed  that  pe- 
culiar half-somersault,  afterwards  to  become 
so  familiar  to  us  all,  when  one  of  the  latter 


22  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

animals  displayed  his  twinkling  heels  as  he 
changed  ends,  and  dropped  like  lightning  into 
his  hole. 

It  being  quite  late  in  the  day  when  we 
started  from  Cheyenne,  night  overtook  us  long 
before  we  had  accomplished  half  the  distance 
between  that  place  and  Greeley,  and  not  know- 
ing the  country  through  which  we  were  pass- 
ing, we  traveled  until  long  after  dark,  vainly 
hoping  to  find  water  and  a  place  to  camp.  For- 
tunately for  us,  in  passing  Crow  creek,  a  few 
miles  this  side  of  Cheyenne,  we  had,  for  the 
purpose  of  keeping  a  small  bucket  from  drying 
out  and  falling  down,  filled  it  with  water  and 
set  it  in  the  feed  box  at  the  back  end  of  the 
wagon,  and  there  was  now  about  a  gallon  re- 
maining that  had  not  slopped  out  on  the  way. 
It  must  have  been  at  least  ten  o'clock  at  night 
when,  despairing  of  reaching  any  better  place 
to  stop,  and  with  only  this  scant  supply  of 
water,  barely  enough  to  moisten  the  oats  for 
our  horses  and  leave  a  drink  for  ourselves,  we 
finally  unhitched  and  went  into  camp.  The 
road  being  the  only  place  comparatively  free 
from  cactus,  we  stopped  the  wagon  right  in 
the  track,  and,  after  feeding  our  team,  made 
our  bed  under  it,  between  the  wheels. 

The  night  was  mild  and  clear,  and  almost 
in  a  moment  we  were  fast  asleep.  The  enjoy- 
ment of  food  and  rest  depends  with  us  all  so 


THE    JOURNEY    TO    THE    PROMISED    LAND.  23 

little  on  outward  circumstances  of  life,  and  so 
much  on  inward  condition  of  mind  and  mood, 
that  not  the  most  favorable  conditions  of  exist- 
ence can  of  themselves  lend  us  either  appetite 
for  the  daintiest  fare  by  day,  nor  refreshing- 
sleep  by  night.  Of  the  food  of  a  lifetime,  I 
can  recall  but  three  meals  which  gave  me  the 
satisfaction  that  clings  to  memory.  In  1860, 
while  crossing  the  plains  from  Omaha  to  Den- 
ver, I  one  day  dined  principally  on  dried  buf- 
falo meat,  purchased  from  some  Indians  wq 
met  on  the  w^ay.  It  was  cut  in  thin  strips,  had 
but  the  least  imaginable  salt  in  it,  for  that  was 
a  scarce  luxury  with  the  Indians  those  days, 
and  instead  of  being  smoked,  was  simply  cured 
by  hanging  on  a  line  in  the  sun  and  wind.  I 
thought  as  I  ate  it  that  I  had  never  tasted 
sweeter  meat,  and  nearly  half  a  century  after- 
wards I  think  so  yet.  On  a  raid  in  the  army 
in  Arkansas,  in  1862,  this  same  brother-in-law 
and  myself,  called  at  a  log  cabin  in  a  swamp, 
just  at  daylight  in  the  morning  after  an  all- 
night  ride,  only  to  find  the  cabin  empty  and 
"the  cupboard  all  bare.''  Not  so  much  as  a 
crust  of  corn  bread  did  the  house  afford;  but 
on  looking  about  us  we  at  last  discovered  a 
string  of  jerked  venison  suspended  from  a 
stick  across  the  wide  mouth  of  the  great  fire 
place  in  one  end  of  the  single  room  in  the 
abandoned  home.    We  took  it  down  and  seat- 


24  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

ing  ourselves  at  the  rude  pine  table  that  sat 
in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  we  breakfasted 
sumptuously  on  dry  venison  and  water.  We 
had  been  riding  all  night,  were  nearly  famished 
for  food,  and  I  thought  as  I  chewed  that  dry 
meat  and  sipped  water  from  my  canteen  that 
I  had  never  eaten  a  better  meal  in  my  life,  and 
I  think  so  still. 

During  the  long,  cold  and  dreary  winter  of 
1863-4,  while  General  Sherman's  army  lay  in 
and  about  the  city  of  Chattanooga,  Tenn.,  sub- 
sisting on  half  rations  for  a  regular  issue,  and 
occasionally  on  less,  until  the  bridges  and 
railroads  could  be  repaired  and  communication 
thereby  established  with  the  army's  base  of 
supplies,  myself  and  a  comrade  one  day  pene- 
trated the  outside  guard  and  getting  out  among 
the  farms  began  a  search  for  something  to  eat. 
The  country,  however,  had  been  overrun  by 
each  army  in  turn  until  not  a  chicken,  not  a 
ham,  not  even  a  sweet  potato  remained. 

At  last,  finding  a  small  bin  of  wheat,  we 
filled  our  haversacks  with  that  and  returned  to 
camp.  Arrived  there  tired  and  hungry  from 
our  long  tramp,  we  ground  a  little  of  that 
wheat  in  a  common  coffee  mill,  and,  mixing  the 
coarse,  unsifted  meal  with  water  and  salt, 
cooked  pancakes  for  supper.  Some  little 
knowledge  of  the  art  of  cookery,  gained 
through  years  of  experience  in  army  life,  and 


THE    JOUBNEY    TO    THE    PROMISED    LAND.  25 

roughing  it  on  the  plains  and  in  the  mines, 
enables  me  with  reasonable  probability  of 
truthful  estimate  to  assume  that  this  meal 
of  cakes  must  have  been  an  abominable  mess. 
But  I  remember  it,  nevertheless,  as  one  of  the 
three  incomparably  delicious  and  delightful  re- 
pasts of  a  lifetime. 

So,  too,  the  pleasantest  dreams  and  the 
most  refreshing  sleep  in  the  lives  of  us  all 
have  not  been  found  in  luxurious  beds  of  ease. 
I  remember  with  peculiar  pleasure  the  sweet 
rest,  and  the  deep  sleep  I  enjoyed  on  beds  of 
broom  sedge,  in  Georgia,  Alabama,  North  and 
South  Carolina,  Tennessee  and  Virginia,  dur- 
ing the  war,  and  on  beds  of  pine  boughs  in 
the  mountains,  and  beneath  the  clear  skies 
and  twinkling  stars  on  the  grassy  plains;  and 
particularly  this  night  of  which  I  am  speak- 
ing, on  the  road  from  Cheyenne  down  to  Gree- 
ley, in  1870,  will  count  with  me  as  one  of  the 
pleasantest  night's  repose  in  all  life's  flight 
of  years. 

Sleeping  with  my  face  to  the  east,  as  the 
first  flush  of  morning  light  became  visible  in 
the  horizon,  its  softly-moving,  life-stirring 
waves  fell  upon  my  eyelids  and  at  once  awak- 
ened me  from  the  deep  and  uninterrupted 
slumber  into  which  I  had  fallen  on  lying  down 
the  night  before.  Giving  Baker  a  sudden 
shake  to  awaken  him  also,  I  hastily  arose,  and. 


26  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

feeding  the  horses  a  little  grain,  began  to  har- 
ness them  for  the  start  on  our  journey.  In  a 
few  moments  more,  as  we  had  neither  fuel  to 
cook  our  breakfast,  nor  water  to  make  our 
coffee,  even  had  we  possessed  the  fuel,  we  were 
on  the  road  toward  our  destination.  Not  long 
after  sunrise  we  emerged  from  the  draw  in 
the  neighborhood  where  B.  S.  La  Grange  and 
M.  J.  Hogarty  afterwards  opened  up  farms  and 
established  their  homes,  and  soon  after  that 
brought  up  at  an  old  adobe  house  near  the 
river  bottom  on  the  farm  afterwards  known 
for  years  as  the  Fletcher  and  Abbott  ranch. 
There  we  unhitched,  and  there  being,  for  some 
reason  or  another,  no  one  at  home,  we  imme- 
diately took  possesssion,  built  a  fire  in  the 
kitchen  stove,  helped  ourselves  from  a  pan 
of  milk  that  happened  to  sit  conveniently  near 
us  on  a  shelf,  had  a  good  breakfast,  and  about 
the  middle  of  the  forenoon  arrived  on  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  river  in  the  immediate  vicinity 
of  Greeley. 

There  were  at  the  time  no  bridges  on  the 
Poudre  between  the  foothills  and  the  railroad 
bridge  which  still  stands  just  opposite  the 
town.  The  river  was  very  high,  for  this  was 
the  26th  day  of  June,  and  it  being  impossible 
to  ford  it  with  the  wagon,  we  sw^am  the  horses 
over  the  stream,  and  dragged  the  wagon  across 
the  bridge,  between  the  rails,  by  hand.   Then, 


THE    JOURNEY    TO    THE    PROMISED    LAND.  27 

attaching  the  horses,  we  arrived  in  the  new 
city  at  a  little  past  twelve  o'clock,  as  emi- 
grants, in  a  wagon,  after  the  primitive  manner 
of  our  forefathers,  and  in  so  far  as  I  know, 
were  the  only  original  Colonists  who  reached 
the  goal  of  hope  in  that  way. 


28  COLONIAL   DAYS. 


OHAPTEK  III. 

THE   ARRIVAL^   AND   FIRST   IMPRESSIONS. 

Only  remaining  in  town  long  enough  to 
ascertain  where  we  might  temx^orarily  pasture 
our  horses  and  go  into  camp,  and  being  directed 
to  Island  Grove  Park,  we  proceeded  there  with- 
out delay.  We  stopped  under  the  branches  of 
the  first  large  cottonwood,  still  standing,  I 
believe,  on  the  right  side  of  the  road,  after 
crossing  the  bridge  over  the  old  mill-power 
canal,  as  you  go  in.  There  we  pitched  our 
tent,  for  we  had  a  good  large  one  with  us,  and 
picketed  our  horses,  and,  after  getting  our  din- 
ner, came  back  to  town  again  to  make  a  more 
critical  examination  of  the  oppportunities  the 
enterprise  afforded  than  we  had  been  able  to 
get  when  passing  through  the  town  in  the 
morning.  As  we  mingled  among  the  commu- 
nity of  new  faces  which  everywhere  met  us 
while  we.  looked  about,  it  now  occurred  to  me 
for  the  first  time  as  being  a  little  strange  that, 
of  the  dozens  of  schoolmates  and  scores  of  old 
acquaintances,  and  hundreds  of  army  com- 
rades I  knew,  scattered  here  and  there  over 
the  Northern  states,  many  of  whom    I    had 


THE   ARRIVAL,   AND  FIRST   IMPRESSIONS.  29 

naturally  expected,  from  the  great  publicity 
given  to  the  formation  of  the  Colony,  would, 
like  myself,  be  interested  in  the  movement, 
and  more  than  likely  arrive  here  before  I  did; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  not  one  of  these  had 
joined  the  organization  or  put  a  dollar  into 
the  enterprise.  When  I  reflected  further  that 
not  one  member  then  on  the  ground,  save  Mr. 
Meeker  alone,  had  I  ever  known  by  name  or 
reputation,  then  my  heart  sank  within  me,  and 
I  said  to  myself:  "Who  are  all  these  people, 
gathered  together  under  the  leadership  of  one 
visionary  old  man,  in  the  vain  hope  of  build- 
ing up  a  paradise  in  the  sands  of  the  desert? 
Evidently  all  of  them  cranks  and  fools,  and 
myself  pre-eminently  the  foolest  fool  in  the 
lot.'' 

As  we  walked  about  here  and  there,  we  saw 
men  running  hither  and  thither,  up  and  down 
the  ridiculous  little  furrows  that  at  the  time 
marked  off  the  magnificent  imaginary  streets, 
all  seemingly  laboring  under  great  excitement, 
and  all  of  them  engaged  in  looking  up  desir- 
able lots  for  location.  Baker  and  myself 
smiled  loftily  at  these  poor  infatuated  mor- 
tals running  crazy  over  imaginary  homes  to 
be  built  up  in  the  sand;  and,  returning  to  camp 

ithat  night,  tired  out  with  our  tramp,  disgusted 
with  the  enterprise  into  which  we  had  been 
foolishly  duped,  and  displeased  and  mortified 
I 


30  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

at  the  part  we  had  played  in  it,  we  sat  there 
in  the  deepening  shadows  of  approaching 
night,  too  ashamed  of  ourselves  to  strike  a 
light  and  see  how  mean  we  looked.  Baker  sat 
on  a  small  box,  whittling  the  edge,  and  I  sat 
on  the  bed,  both  of  us  silent  as  the  grave,  and 
for  a  long  time  absorbed  in  gloomy  reflections. 
At  last  Baker  broke  the  seance  and  struck  the 
key  note  of  the  situation  with  the  remark  that 
he'd  seen  enough  to  satisfy  him  and  should 
^^light  out;"  if  not  next  day,  at  least  very  soon. 
I  expressed  the  same  conclusion,  but  interposed 
a  slight  objection  to  immediate  action  by  ask- 
ing where?  Then  we  discussed  where  we  would 
go,  and  what  we  would  do,  for  two  or  three 
hours,  and,  not  being  able  to  agree  on  any 
definite  course  of  action  that  night,  finally  went 
to  sleep. 

The  next  morning,  after  taking  care  of  our 
horses  and  getting  breakfast,  not  having  any- 
thing else  to  do,  we  paid  another  visit  to  the 
new  town.  And  now,  as  we  entered  the  long 
straight  furrows  again,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
for  some  reason  or  another  they  did  not  look 
quite  so  ridiculous  as  they  did  the  day  before. 
As  we  passed  along  and  saw  the  people  still 
engaged  in  looking  up  lots,  with  a  view  to  resi- 
dences and  business  houses,  they  did  not  seem 
to  me  quite  so  unwarrantably  insane  as  they 
did  the  day  before.     There  had  been  a  little 


THE   ARRIVAL,   AND  FIRST   IMPRESSIONS.  31 

shower  during  the  night,  the  air  was  fresher, 
and  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  soil  did  not  look 
quite  so  sandy  as  it  did  the  day  before.  Finally, 
meeting  and  receiving  a  pleasant  greeting  from 
two  or  three  men  whom  we  had  met  the  day 
before,  our  spirits  began  to  rise  with  the  occa- 
sion, and  we  were  not  conscious  of  being  quite 
the  extraordinary  fools  we  thought  ourselves 
the  day  before;  and  then  the  first  thing  we 
knew,  we  were  running  frantically  about  look- 
ing for  lots  for  ourselves,  and  quite  disgusted, 
too,  to  think  we  had  wasted  so  much  time.  We 
got  some  and  that  settled  the  business ;  we  set- 
tled. 


32  COLONIAL   DAYS. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

AN   EPISODE — WE   CELEBRATE. 

Very  naturally  one  of  the  first  social  duties 
of  the  newly-arrived  members  was  to  call  upon 
the  president  of  the  Colony.  We  did  so,  both 
as  a  matter  of  etiquette  and  business  as  well, 
very  soon  after  reaching  Greeley,  and  were 
immediately  introduced  to  Mr.  Meeker.  Then 
I  remember  that  I  at  once  got  into  a  dispute 
with  him  concerning  the  fertility  of  the  up- 
lands. It  was  not  so  much  that  I  wanted  to 
argue  the  pros  and  cons  with  him,  as  that  I 
wanted  to  know  the  truth  in  the  matter.  Com- 
ing but  recently  from  a  country  where  there 
w^ere  thousands  of  acres  of  sandy,  gravely 
soil,  that  was  absolutely  worthless  for  agri- 
cultural purposes,  I  naturally  had  my  doubts 
as  to  the  fertility  of  this,  and  I  expressed  them. 
This  seemed  to  displease  Mr.  Meeker  very 
much,  and  he  replied  to  my  observations  quite 
sharply.  However,  although  curt  and  short 
in  speech,  I  came  away  from  that  interview 
impressed  with  the  fact  that  he  was  an  hon- 
est man,  who  had  the  success  of  the  enterprise 
in  which  he  was  engaged  nearer  to  his  heart 
than  any  other  object  in  the  world. 


^^■^   tprview 


AN    EPISODE — ^WE    CELEBRATE.  33 


Coming  out  of  the  Colony  office  after  this  in- 
terview with  the  president,  I  saw  a  man  stand- 
ing on  a  box  addressing  a  crowd  of  the  colonists 
who  were  gathered  in  a  knot  to  hear  him.  There 
seemed  to  be  dissatisfaction,  or  misunderstand- 
ing and  the  man  was  trying  to  explain  matters 
so  as  to  molify  his  audience.  He  was  pleasant, 
plausible,  good  natured  and  persuasive,  and 
he  soon  succeeded  in  getting  his  hearers  into 
as  good  natured  a  frame  of  mind  as  his  own. 
It  was  General  Cameron,  the  vice-president 
and  superintendent  of  the  Colony  at  the  time, 
one  for  whose  ways  of  managing  men  and 
things,  then  and  later,  many  of  the  Colonists, 
including  myself,  conceived  a  very  decided 
mistrust,  which  I  am  more  than  willing  to  ad- 
mit now  was  entirely  the  result  of  miscon- 
ception, and  had  no  foundation,  in  fact,  from 
any  wrong  he  then  did  or  any  ulterior  motive 
that  he  ever  had. 

Mr.  Shattuck  had  arrived  in  Greeley  two 
or  three  days  in  advance  of  Baker  and  myself, 
and,  sharing  in  the  general  disappointment  at 
first  felt  by  nearly  every  one  on  their  arrival 
here,  had,  although  he  still  retained  his  cer- 
tificate of  membership  in  the  Colony,  gone  up 
the  river  a  little  below  Fort  Collins  and 
bought,  or  located,  a  piece  of  land  in  company 
with  a  young  Englishman  of  his  acquaintance, 


34  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

a  Mr.  Forward,  and  they  had  not,  therefore, 
met  us  since  our  arrival.  Preparations  had 
been  made  for  a  grand  celebration  on  the 
Fourth  of  July,  in  which  it  was  proposed  to 
give  the  new  town  a  sort  of  christening,  and 
the  evening  before  that  event  Shattuck  and 
his  friend  came  down  in  order  to  participate 
in  the  festivities  of  the  occasion,  and  staid 
over  night  with  us  in  our  tent  in  the  park.  I 
remember  that  we  met  like  old  friends  that 
had  been  long  parted,  whereas  we  w^ere  ac- 
quaintances of  less  than  a  week,  all  told;  but 
we  had  a  jolly  time,  nevertheless,  in  recount- 
ing the  adventures  we  had  met  with  since  our 
arrival  in  the  new  land. 

Baker  and  myself  had  constructed  a  rude 
sort  of  bunk,  on  which  to  make  our  beds,  but 
as  we  had  not  expected  to  entertain  company, 
Shattuck  and  his  friend,  when  at  last  it  be- 
came necessary  to  go  to  bed,  spread  their 
blankets  on  the  floor  of  the  tent  and  slept  upon 
the  ground.  Some  time  in  the  night  we  were 
awakened  from  the  sweetest  of  slumbers  by 
Mr.  Shattuck,  w^ho  sprang  from  his  bed  on 
the  ground  up  on  our  bunk  and,  grabbing  me 
by  the  arm  in  mortal  terror,  as  it  seemed  to 
me,  awakened  as  I  was  so  suddenly  and  rudely 
from  my  dreams,  began  whispering  hoarsely 
some  sort  of  alarming  message  in  my  ear.  Not 
getting  any  clear  idea  of  what  he  said  and 


Jhavmff 


AN    EPISODE — ^WE    CELEBRATE.  35 


aving  in  my  mind  but  two  sources  of  appre- 
hended danger  at  the  time,  Indians  and 
thieves,  I  at  once  grabbed  the  Winchester 
which  lay  by  my  side  and,  drawing  back  the 
lever  so  as  to  throw  a  cartridge  into  the  cham- 
ber, instantly  prepared  to  repel  the  invader 
of  our  possessions,  whoever  he  might  be. 
About  this  time,  however,  Mr. Forward  arrived 
also  on  top  of  our  bunk  with  a  bound  and 
Baker  and  myself  being  now  thoroughly 
awake,  we  discovered  that  the  terror-inspir- 
ing cause  of  our  midnight  disturbance  was 
merely  a  hungry  skunk,  which,  roaming  about 
in  the  night  in  search  of  something  to  eat, 
had  crawled  in  between  the  folds  of  our  tent 
in  front,  and  was-  now  at  his  leisure  investi- 
gating the  contents  of  our  larder.  It  took  no 
lengthy  council  of  war  to  determine  our  course 
of  action  as  to  that  skunk;  we  did  not  hurry 
him  in  the  least;  we  knew  he  would  leave 
when  he  got  good  and  ready,  and  we  patiently 
awaited  his  pleasure  in  the  matter.  We 
couldn't  even  strike  a  light,  for  we  were  un- 
able to  reach  the  matches,  and  we  accordingly 
sat  there  for  an  hour  or  more,  Mr.  Shattuck 
and  his  friend  not  being  able  to  secure  their 
pantaloons  during  all  the  time  that  skunk  saw 
fit  to  keep  possession  of  our  premises.  At  last, 
after  crawling  all  around  the  tent  and  even  un- 
der our  bunk,  licking  the  meat  gravy  from  the 


36  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

frying  pan  and  sniffing  his  nose  at  everything 
else,  to  see  if  he  needed  it  in  his  business,  he 
took  his  departure  in  the  composed,  unruffled, 
deliberate  manner  peculiar  to  this  unwelcome 
creature,  when  not  unwisely  pushed  to  the 
wall,  and  then  closing  the  tent  after  him 
tightly,  so  as  to  prevent  a  repetition  of  the 
invasion,  we  once  more  composed  ourselves  to 
sleep  and  dreams  of  home  and  friends. 

I  remember  very  little  of  the  exercises  of 
the  next  day,  further  than  that  they  were  va- 
ried from  the  usual  course  of  national  cele- 
brations, as  we  had  been  accustomed  to  par- 
ticipate in  them,  by  some  cowboys,  who  had 
been  engaged,  or  had  perhaps  volunteered,  to 
amuse  the  newcomers  by  riding  horses  after 
the  Indian  fashion  and  throwing  the  lariat. 

The  governor  of  the  then  young  territory 
had  been  induced  to  come  down  to  the  new 
city  and  welcome  its  people  with  a  speech,  the 
oration  of  the  day;  and  I  remember  as  little 
of  what  he  said  as  I  do  of  the  many  other 
Fourth  of  July  orations  I  have  heard  in  my 
time.  But  there  was  one  remark  he  feelingly 
made  which  attracted  my  attention,  because  it 
related  to  bonded  indebtedness,  and  I  have  al- 
ways had  a  horror  of  bonds,  county,  municipal 
or  state.  The  Denver  Pacific  railway  had  but 
just  been  completed  to  Denver,  and  I  think  it 


AN    EPISODE — WE    CELEBRATE.  37 

probable  that  in  the  effort  to  get  railroad 
bonds  voted  in  Arapahoe  county  the  governor 
must  have  opposed  the  movement;  at  all 
events,  in  speaking  of  the  newly-constructed 
roads  he  said  we  were  urged  as  a  reason  for 
granting  aid  in  their  construction  that  they 
helped  settle  up  and  improve  the  country 
through  which  they  passed.  "That  is  very 
true/'  said  the  doughty  governor  and  ex-gen- 
eral, "but  I  tell  them  I  should  like  to  see  a 
country  settled  up  in  such  a  manner  that  a 
man  might  afford  to  live  in  it  after  settle- 
ment." 

One  other  incident  I  remember  in  connec- 
tion with  that  early  day  celebration.  The 
Hon.  J.  L.  Brush,  at  that  time  living  over  on 
the  Big  Thompson,  came  over  in  a  wagon  with 
his  family  to  see  the  new  city  and  take  part 
in  the  ceremonies  of  the  day.  He  staid  all 
night  to  attend  a  dance,  which  was  given  out 
of  doors,  if  I  remember  rightly,  and  on  a  tem- 
porary floor,  laid  especially  for  the  occasion; 
and  the  next  day,  as  they  ascended  the  crest 
of  the  divide,  between  the  Poudre  and  the  Big 
Thompson  and  loked  down  into  the  valley  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  the  home  they  had  left  the 
day  before,  beheld  only  a  heap  of  ashes,  and  a 
thin,  curling  cloud  of  smoke  arising  like  the 
incense  from  the  altars  of  the  ancient  gods; 


38  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

for,  the  lightning  striking  it  in  their  absence, 
it  had  burned  to  the  ground,  and  with  it  con- 
sumed all  their  household  goods  but  the 
clothes  they  had  on  their  persons. 


PLAIN   LIVING    AND    HIGH   THINKING.  39 


CHAPTER  V. 

PLAIN  LIVING  AND  HIGH  THINKING  IN  HOTEL 
DE   COMFORT. 

Shortly  after  the  events  described  in  the 
last  chapter,  Mr.  Shattuck,  having  abandoned 
the  idea  of  settling  on  the  river  near  Fort  Col- 
lins, selected  a  lot  near  the  one  I  had  mean- 
time chosen,  and  Mr.  Forward  and  himself 
joining  us  in  household  expenses,  we  moved 
into  town  and  set  up  our  tent  on  a  vacant  lot 
now  occupied  by  Senator  Clayton's  lumber 
yard.  Then  we  purchased  material  and  im- 
mediately began  the  erection  of  our  houses, 
preparatory  to  sending  for  our  families.  One 
day,  not  long  after  that,  as  we  were  eating  our 
dinner,  a  sudden  gust  of  wind,  such  as  all  of 
us  have  since  become  accustomed  to  see  and 
feel,  struck  our  tent,  and,  tearing  it  in  two  in 
the  middle,  upset  all  our  dishes  except  those 
we  held  in  our  hands,  and  left  us  to  finish  our 
meal  as  best  we  could,  exposed  to  the  fury  of 
the  storm.  That  ended  life  in  a  tent  for  us,  and 
the  next  day  we  moved  into  the  old  "Hotel  de 
Comfort,"  one  of  the  most  noted  of  the  earlier 
structures  in  Greeley,  where  we  remained  un- 


40  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

til  our  homes  were  suflQciently  inclosed  to  af- 
ford us  a  shelter  while  completing  them. 

This  building,  as  all  the  earlier  colonists 
well  remember,  had  been  moved  down  from 
Cheyenne,  and  had  been  fitted  up  for  the  use 
of  arriving  colonists  until  they  were  able  to 
erect  houses  for  themselves.  It  was  divided 
into  two  compartments — one  for  families,  and 
one  for  young  unmarried  men,  and  those  whose 
families  had  been  temporarily  left  behind. 
Into  this  building  our  party  had  moved,  bag 
and  baggage,  and  for  a  short  time  thereafter 
lived  in  the  most  unique  society  in  which  it 
was  ever  my  lot  to  be  thrown. 

During  the  day,  if  the  weather  was  pleas- 
ant, the  larger  share  of  us  were  at  work  on  our 
own  houses  and  in  our  gardens,  for  pride  in  the 
garden  was  one  of  the  first  evidences  of  at- 
tachment to  the  new  country  and  the  new 
home;  but  at  night  we  were  all  gathered  to- 
gether in  the  old  building,  and  for  hours  and 
hours,  away  into  the  night,  we  sang  songs,  told 
stories,  recited  poetry,  made  speeches,  dis- 
cussed philosophy,  political  economy,  religion 
and  the  Civil  War.  We  criticised  the  general 
government,  and  all  government,  and  especi- 
ally the  management  of  Colonial  affairs.  Some 
wanted  to  talk  all  night  and  lay  abed  all  the 
forenoon;  and  others  w^anted  to  go  to  bed  at 
dark,  and  get  up  at  daylight  in  the  morning. 


PLAIN   LIVING   AND    HIGH    THINKING.  41 

To  this  latter  class  belonged  myself,  for,  if  we 
concede  the  proposition  that  man's  optics  are 
adapted  to  sunlight  and  not  to  darkness;  that 
he  requires  an  average  of  eight  hours'  sleep 
in  every  twenty-four,  I  never  could  see  w^hy  any 
sane  man,  anless  the  nature  of  his  vocation 
absolutely  prevented  it,  should  not  sleep  in  the 
night  and  labor  in  the  day.  Why  should  any 
human  being,  for  instance,  sit  up  until  eleven 
or  twelve  o'clock  at  night,  using  artificial 
light  to  guide  his  eye  or  hand,  and  then  close 
the  blinds  to  keep  out  the  Almighty's  free  sun- 
light in  the  morning,  in  order  to  steal  back  the 
sleep  due  in  the  night  time  to  all  animated 
nature,  save  only  bats,  owls  and  beasts  of 
prey. 

We  were  all  in  one  room  together,  and  there 
was  not  the  opportunity,  as  in  private  life,  for 
each  individual  to  indulge  in  his  whims,  at  the 
expense  only  of  his  own  household.  The  night 
birds  chattered  nearly  all  night,  greatly  to  the 
disturbance  of  the  day  birds,  who  wished  to 
rest;  then  at  daybreak  the  day  birds  began  to 
chatter,  and  woke  up  the  night  birds,  who  had 
but  just  gone  to  sleep.  One  night,  in  particu- 
lar, I  remember  to  have  been  kept  awake  until 
quite  a  late  hour  by  a  general  discussion  of 
various  subjects,  and  just  as  the  last  drowsy 
voice  had  died  away  in  exhausted  repose,  right 
opposite  my  head  as  I  lay  there  in  the  top  row 


42  COLONIAI-   DAYS. 

of  bunks,  the  head  of  a  family  in  the  other 
compartment  began  to  snore.  Snoring  was  the 
one  supreme  annoyance  of  my  existence  dur- 
ing the  Civil  War.  Half  rations,  and  these 
composed  exclusively  of  the,  to  me,  two  most 
detested  articles  of  military  diet — bacon  and 
beans — never  caused  me  half  the  anguish  of 
spirit  that  T  have  suffered  in  the  still  watches 
of  the  night,  when,  on  the  tented  field,  I  have 
been  compelled  to  lie  awake  and  listen  to  the 
snores  of  armed  hosts,  reverberating  from  the 
bottoms  of  undrawn  boots. 

As  the  deep,  low-toned  base  snore,  ema- 
nating from  the  head  of  the  family  in  the  op- 
posite compartment,  on  this  particular  occa- 
sion, gradually  ascended  the  register  into  more 
distinct  articulation,  all  the  more  painful  to 
my  unwilling  ear  because  of  the  lull  in  the  con- 
versation which  had  now  taken  place,  I  felt 
at  last  that  desperate  measures  were  justifi- 
able; and,  as  repeated  rappings  on  the  wall 
back  of  my  head  had  not  been  attended  with 
the  proper  response  from  the  sleeper,  I  now 
carefully  drew  the  rod  from  my  gun  near  by, 
and,  poking  it  through  a  knot-hole  in  the  par- 
tition, gave  my  neighbor  a  poke  on  the  top  of 
his  bald  head.  Then,  when  I  had  sufficiently 
aroused  him  to  a  sense  of  alarm  at  the  sudden 
attack  on  his  head  piece,  I  informed  him  that 
I  had  feared  he  was  strangling,  and  asked. 


PLAIN   LIVING    AND    HIGH    THINKING.  43 

with  feigned  solicitude,  if  he  felt  in  his  usual 
health.  It  happened,  however,  that  the  good 
man's  better  half  had  by  that  time  become 
even  more  clearly  aroused  than  was  her  liege 
lord,  and,  perfectly  comprehending  the  situa- 
tion, and  being  quite  angry,  as  well,  at  my  in- 
terference in  matters,  she  now  arose  on  her  el- 
bow, and  replied  for  her  husband  in  a  loud, 
shrill  voice,  that  could  be  heard  distinctly  all 
over  the  buildingj  "Mr.  Clark,  my  husband 
can  just  snore,  and  snore  as  long  as  he  wants 
to,  and,  if  you  don't  like  it,  you  can  just  lump 
it.  So  there,  now!"  A  responsive  titter,  run- 
ning with  a  rippling  sound  along  the  tiers  of 
bunks  in  our  compartment,  gave  me  the  sense 
of  the  meeting  without  putting  the  question, 
and  I  subsided  at  once  into  silence,  if  not  into 
sleep. 

One  morning,  before  I  had  arisen  from  my 
bed — and  I  was  generally  about  the  first  to  be 
up — I  heard  below  me  there,  in  one  of  the 
bunks,  the  voice  of  a  man  or  youth,  in  silvery 
tones,  softly  soothing  to  the  ear,  indulging  in 
quiet,  satirical,  critical  discourse  with  some  op- 
ponent near  by;  then  I  began  a  mental  specu- 
lation, as  I  finished  dressing  myself  for  the  la- 
bors of  the  day,  as  to  what  sort  of  earthly  tab- 
ernacle must  necessarily  be  associated  with  a 
voice  so  finely  modulated,  and  a  tone  so 
smoothly  effeminate  as  that;  and  I  pictured  to 


44  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

myself,  as  the  ideally  essential  accompaniment 
of  such  a  voice,  the  dapper  little  form  of  a 
highly-educated  dude,  who  must  have  been 
lost  in  the  shuffle  back  East  and  been  wafted 
West.  Then  I  cast  my  eye  down  among  the 
lower  tier  of  bunks  to  corroborate  my  theory, 
and  I  beheld  the  burly  form  of  my  friend,  John 
Leavy,  whose  polite,  but  stingingly  sarcastic 
speech,  has  often  since  that  day  excited  the  ad- 
miring wonder  of  other  minds  beside  my  own. 

Not  long  after  this  a  party  of  the  younger 
and  less  responsible  members  of  the  Colony 
procured  some  whiskey,  and,  getting  unduly 
exhilarated  from  its  effects,  sallied  out  in  the 
darkness  of  the  night  for  a  lark  of  loud  and 
striking  proportions,  and,  entering  the  door 
of  the  Hotel  de  Comfort,  which  in  the  heat 
of  summer  had  been  left  ajar,  they  proceeded 
to  throw  great  chunks  of  coal  and  to  hurl 
rocks  up  and  down  the  floor. 

The  occupants  of  the  building,  knowing 
nothing  of  the  real  animus  of  the  attack,  at 
once  ascribed  it  to  the  people  of  Evans,  with 
whom,  even  at  that  early  day,  the  quarrel  over 
the  ultimate  possession  of  the  county  seat  had 
already  been  engendered.  So,  after  the  sec- 
ond assault  had  been  made  upon  us,  we  there- 
fore arose  to  a  man,  and,  emerging  into  the 
street,  gave  chase  to  our  assailants.  I  had  but 
recently  emigrated  from  a  state  where  night 


PLAIN    LIVING    AND    HIGH    THINKING.  45 

interruptions  were  not  uncommon,  but  were 
never  engaged  in  from  a  spirit  of  levity  or 
hilarious  mirth,  and  where  to  fool  around  the 
premises  of  another,  after  dark,  invariably 
meant  very  serious  business  for  one  party  to 
the  interview,  and  not  infrequently  to  both. 
It  was  the  social  law,  I  may  say,  in  ^^Bloody 
Fentress  County,"  where  I  hailed  from,  for 
one  who  wished  to  make  a  friendly  call  upon 
another,  "of  a  cloudy  evening,"  to  ride  up 
within  hailing  distance  of  the  door,  and  there 
dismounting,  to  shout:  "Hello,  the  house!" 
And  the  occupant  would  reply,  meantime 
peeking  through  the  cracks  in  the  door, 
without  unbarring  it:  "Who  is  it,  and  what's 
wanting?"  If  the  visitor  could  then  give  a  sat- 
isfactory account  of  himself,  being  a  stranger, 
or  cause  recognition,  if  an  acquaintance, 
"Bloody  Fentress"  was  one  of  the  most  hos- 
pitable places  in  the  world.  But,  if  the  visitor 
could  do  neither,  there  was  generally  a  funeral 
or  two  next  day.  When,  therefore,  the  attack 
on  our  domicile  took  place  in  the  manner  I 
have  described,  when  all  were  in  bed,  and  the 
greater  number  of  us  asleep,  I  very  naturally 
thought  of  my  gun,  and,  seizing  it  as  I  got 
down  from  my  bunk,  made  a  rush  for  the  door. 
Now,  it  happened  that  John  Leavy,  for  some 
reason  of  his  own,  viewed  the  situation  just 
as  I  did — with  gun  in  hand.      And  we  two 


■ 


46  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

reached  the  front  door  of  the  building  to- 
gether, at  the  head  of  a  hurried  procession, 
which  suddenly  emerged  into  the  street.  As 
we  started  in  pursuit  of  the  marauders,  who 
took  to  their  heels  in  the  darkness  to  make 
their  escape,  some  one  of  our  crowd  in  the  rear 
called  out  to  John  and  myself:  "Boys,  don't 
shoot."  I  never  turned  my  head  to  see  who 
made  the  remark,  but  I  heard  John  assure  the 
speaker,  in  that  mild,  persuasive  tone  of  his: 
"Tush,  man;  it  isn't  loaded!''  Just  at  that  mo- 
ment we  heard  a  woman  scream  in  a  tent  near 
by,  most  probably  from  mere  hysterical  fright, 
but,  taking  it  for  granted  that  the  marauders 
had  now  added  injury  to  offense,  I  at  once 
threw  my  gun  to  my  shoulder,  and,  calling  on 
the  rearmost  man,  whom  I  could  indistinctly 
see  running  ahead  of  me  in  the  darkness,  to 
halt,  when  he  did  not  do  so,  I  fired,  and  the 
man  immediately  fell  to  the  ground.  At  the 
same  moment  that  I  discharged  my  gun  I  no- 
ticed the  singular  fact  that  Leavy^s,  also, 
which  but  a  moment  previous  had  no  load  in 
it,  went  off  simultaneously  with  my  own.  I 
was  now  seized  with  great  alarm  for  fear  we 
had  killed  the  man,  but,  on  going  up  to  him, 
we  found  he  was  only  very  badly  scared;  and, 
on  learning  this,  Leavy  promptly  arose  to  the 
occasion,  and,  catching  hold  of  the  man's  leg, 
gave  it  a  terrible  yank,  and  wanted  to  know 


PLAIN   LIVING    AND    HIGH    THINKING.  47 

what  he  meant  by  falling  down  that  way  and 
scaring  people  nearly  to  death.  To  this  rather 
unreasonable  inquiry  the  man  merely  replied: 
"Good  God,  gentlemen;  if  the  bullets  had 
whistled  about  your  head  as  they  did  about 
mine,  you  would  have  taken  a  tumble,  too." 
Having  caught  our  man,  and  also  another  of 
the  party  engaged  in  the  riot,  and  having  by 
this  time  discovered  that  the  occurrence  was 
purely  the  result  of  a  drunken  spree,  we  re- 
leased our  prisoners,  and  nothing  more  was 
ever  said  about  it.  One  of  the  persons  engaged 
in  this  escapade,  now  a  sedate,  sober-minded, 
responsible  citizen,  was  well  known  long  after- 
wards for  his  convivial  freaks,  but  the  other, 
the  man  we  shot  at,  I  did  not  know,  and  who 
he  was  I  have  never  ascertained  to  this  day. 


48  COLONIAL   DAYS. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

OUR   ONLY    SALOON — WE    HAVE    A    TILT    WITH 
WHISKEY. 

Just  as  soon  as  I  could  get  the  frame  of 
my  house  erected  and  sufficiently  enclosed  to 
protect  us  from  wind  and  rain,  Baker  and  my- 
self moved  over  into  the  new  home.  We  put 
our  bed  up  stairs  on  some  loose  boards,  for 
the  floor  was  not  yet  laid,  set  up  our  stove 
in  the  back  yard  and  went  to  keeping  house 
by  ourselves.  Mr.  Shattuck,  who  was  also  en- 
gaged in  constructing  his  house,  did  the  same. 
One  Sunday  about  this  time,  as  I  sat  writing 
letters  to  distant  friends  in  the  old  home,  I 
became  conscious  of  a  strange,  peculiar  din 
outside,  growing  louder  and  louder  each  min- 
ute, and  while  speculating  in  an  absent-minded 
way,  as  to  what  it  all  meant,  Mr.  Shattuck 
came  suddenly  to  the  door  and  said  there 
seemed  to  be  a  riot  or  trouble  of  some  kind 
going  on  below  us  at  the  abode  house  on  the 
bottom,  where  it  was  reported  that  a  saloon- 
keeper from  Evans  had  moved  in  with  a  stock 
in  trade  and  opended  up  business  by  selling 
whiskey  and  beer.     Smoke  as  well  as  noise 


OUR  ONLY   SALOON.  49 

seemed  to  emanate  from  the  building,  around 
which,  by  that  time,  a  great  crowd  had  con- 
gregated, and  seeing  this  we  at  once  started 
for  the  place.  Arrived  there  we  found  the 
building  completely  enveloped  in  flames,  while 
the  small  stock  of  whiskey  and  beer  had  been 
moved  to  a  safe  distance  outside.  Inquiring  as 
to  the  cause  of  the  disturbance,  and  the  at- 
tendant fire,  one  young  man  considerately  in- 
formed me  that  a  delegation  had  come  down 
from  town  to  remonstrate  with  the  saloon- 
keeper as  to  his  course,  and  that  while  they 
were  holding  their  powwow  with  him,  "the 
house  just  took  fire  of  itself."  Of  course  we 
took  no  stock  in  the  theory  of  that  sort  as  to 
the  origin  of  the  fire,  but  noticing  the  stock 
of  liquors  safely  stowed  away  just  out  of 
reach  of  the  flames,  it  occurred  to  me  as  being 
a  strange  and  senseless  proceeding  to  tear 
down  and  burn  the  building  in  which  the  of- 
fending beverage  was  sold,  and  preserve  the 
villainous  poison  itself.  I  said  so;  and  Ralph 
Meeker,  it  seems,  entertaining  views  similar 
to  mine,  about  that  time  seized  a  cask  of  whis- 
key and  was  going  to  throw  it  into  the  flames 
when  General  Cameron  grabbed  his  arm  and 
thus  prevented  the  destruction  of  the  precious 
fluid.  Some  words  ensued  between  the  two, 
and,  if  I  remember  correctly,  Ralph  struck  at 
the  general  during  the  altercation.    I  can  now 


50  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

see  that  it  would  hardly  have  answered  the  re- 
quirements of  the  occasion  if  the  recognized 
leaders  of  the  community  had  appeared  to 
wink  at  a  riotous  i)roceeding  like  that;  some- 
thing, of  course,  was  due  from  the  officials  as 
discouraging  lawlessness  in  the  people;  but  at 
the  time,  and  for  a  long  while  afterwards,  it 
seemed  to  us  that  the  general  was  very  much 
overzealous  in  the  matter.  He  was  accused,  in 
fact,  of  trying  to  find  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the 
old  settlers  in  the  county,  and  it  was  thought 
that  he  endeavored  to  appease  the  wrath  of 
outsiders,  on  this  and  other  occasions,  in  the 
early  days  of  the  Colony,  from  motives  which 
reached  out  a  great  deal  farther  than  mere 
solicitude  for  our  own  w^elfare.  I  presume  that 
in  this,  as  in  many  other  cases  of  the  kind,  we 
misjudged  the  general,  and  that  what  he  did 
was  for  the  best;  although  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  these  suspicions  as  to  the  motives 
of  his  conduct,  at  that  and  other  times,  de- 
tracted greatly  from  the  influence  which  his 
fine  abilities,  his  genial  disposition,  and  his 
real  services  to  the  people  deserved.  I  feel 
bound  to  admit,  however,  even  at  this  late  day, 
that  on  this  particular  occasion,  I  regretted 
exceedingly  that  Ralph  had  not  the  strength 
and  inclination  to  give  the  general  a  good 
threshing. 


OUR  ONLY   SALOON.  -     51 

The  remark  I  made  in  reference  to  destroy- 
ing the  building  and  saving  the  whiskey,  con- 
stituted my  sole  part  in  the  proceedings  of  the 
day;  but  I  take  no  pride  or  credit  to  myself  on 
that  account;  had  I  known  of  the  gathering 
at  the  time  it  first  took  place,  I  have  little 
doubt  I  should  have  been  at  the  front  with  the 
rest  in  all  that  followed. 

The  next  morning  after  the  destruction  of 
the  property,  Mr.  Niemeyer  swore  out  warrants 
for  the  arrest  of  several  parties  whom  he  recog- 
nized as  being  participants  in  the  riot  of  the 
day  before,  and  I  was  among  the  number.  At 
the  trial  which  followed,  the  evidence  seemed 
to  point  especially  towards  Ralph  Meeker 
and  Mr.  Norcross;  not  that  they  were  either 
leaders  or  principal  offenders  in  the  matter, 
but  that  Niemeyer  had  his  attention  particu- 
larly directed  to  them,  and  he  swore  to  their 
having  taken  part  in  the  destruction  of  his 
property.  In  particular  he  swore  positively 
that  he  saw  Mr.  Norcross  place  burning  paper 
and  rags  upon  the  window  sill  of  the  burning 
building,  presumably,  to  facilitate  the  spread 
of  the  flames;  and  it  was  solely  on  his  evidence 
that  both  Meeker  and  Norcross  were  bound 
over  for  trial  in  the  district  court.  But  it 
happened  that  the  man  who  really  placed  the 
paper  and  the  rags  on  the  window  sill,  was 
not  on  trial  for  the  offense  at  all,  but  escaped 


52  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

arrest,  and  enjoj^ed  Niemeyer's  honest  mistake 
in  identifying  the  wrong  man,  as  a  huge  joke, 
for  many  a  day  after  the  incident  had  closed. 

Now  it  happened  that  on  the  day  of  the 
preliminary  hearing  I  was  expecting  my  wife 
to  arrive  in  Greeley;  and  after  a  separation  of 
several  months,  almost  any  one,  I  infer,  pos- 
sessing a  fair  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  will  be 
able  to  appreciate  my  predicament.  Wife  com- 
ing to  meet  her  husband  in  the  new  home  after 
months  of  separation;  pleasing  anticipations 
of  reunion  with  the  object  of  her  affection,  and 
meanwhile,  the  dear  man,  instead  of  being  at 
the  depot  to  meet  her,  as  young  husbands  in- 
variably do,  even  after  the  most  temporary  of 
separations,  is  obliged  to  send  a  friend  to  break 
gently  to  the  better  half  that  owing  to  an  "un- 
fortunate little  occurrence,"  husband  couldn't 
be  there.  Nothing  serious,  you  know,  but  a 
little  awkward,  and  it  is  possible,  too,  that  on 
account  of  the  unfortunate  little  occurrence, 
husband  may  not  be  able  to  get  home  to-night; 
because — because, — to  tell  the  truth,  "my  dear 
Madam,  your  husband  is  on  trial  for  riot  and 
arson,  all  because  he  chose  to  indulge  in  a  lit- 
tle expensive  amusement  in  the  way  of  burning 
down  a  gentleman's  store;  and  it  is  possible 
he  may  go  to  prison  for  years." 

It  doesn't  take  a  very  lively  imagination, 
I  presume,  to  perceive  the  distressing  predica- 


OUR  ONLY   SALOON.  53 

ment  I  was  in.  The  trial  progressed  slowly,  as 
all  trials  seemingly  do,  and  it  must  have  been 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon — the  train  was 
to  arrive  at  four — before  the  evidence  was  all 
in,  and  great  beads  of  cold  sweat  were  begin- 
ning to  stand  out  all  over  my  face  and  body 
in  anticipation  of  the  final  result.  Nothing 
had  appeared  against  me  save  the  single  re- 
mark I  had  made  about  the  folly  of  burning 
the  house  and  saving  the  whiskey;  but  the 
trial  was  not  yet  over,  the  pleas  had  not  been 
made,  and  at  the  least,  there  seemed  no  pros- 
pect that  I  should  be  discharged  before  the 
final  conclusion  of  the  trial,  and  that  I  should, 
consequently,  still  be  under  arrest  when  my 
wife  arrived.  As  I  sat  there,  every  moment 
getting  more  and  more  crest-fallen,  and  dis- 
mayed with  the  prospect,  I  suddenly  noticed 
Justice  Pinkerton  looking  at  me  from  his  seat 
on  the  judicial  bench;  then  presently,  he  had 
turned  to  consult  with  Justice  Mallory,  and  as 
they  both  looked  my  way  while  conferring  to- 
gether I  judged  they  had  my  case  under  ad- 
visement. Now  this  Mr.  Mallory,  by  the  way, 
was  a  justice  of  the  peace  summoned  from 
the  extreme  south  end  of  the  county,  on 
account  of  the  great  gravity  of  the  case, 
to  sit  with  his  brother  Pinkerton,  as  as- 
sociate on  the  bench.  Justice  Mallory  was 
particularly    severe   in   his    condemnation    of 


54  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

the  act  for  which  we  were  on  trial,  and 
in  his  remarks  he  dwelt  on  the  necessity 
of  maintaining  law  and  order;  and  the  virtuous 
indignation  he  expressed  was  no  doubt  quite 
edifying  to  those  who  did  not  know  him.  I 
did,  however;  it  happened  that  I  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  a  previous  acquaintance  with  Mr. 
Mallory,  and  that,  too,  at  quite  an  early  day  in 
the  settlement  of  the  territory.  Indeed,  at  one 
time  it  had  been  my  fortune  to  be  his  next- 
door  neighbor  for  quite  a  season;  and  singu- 
larly enough,  about  the  last  thing  I  had  known 
concerning  the  now  dignified  justice,  who  was 
so  emphatically,  but  hypocritically  expressing 
his  horror  of  the  act  for  which  we  were  on  trial, 
was  in  connection  with  a  little  incident  of  a 
precisely  similar  character,  without  half  the 
excuse  for  its  perpetration.  It  happened  in 
this  way :  To  protect  the  interests  of  the  early 
settlers  along  the  Platte  river,  below  Denver, 
at  the  time,  we  had  perfected  an  organization 
styled  and  known  as  a  "Claim  League."  An 
outsider  had  jumped  a  claim  b'elonging  to  one 
of  our  members,  and,  with  the  redoubtable  Mr. 
Mallory  in  command  of  our  forces  as  "mar- 
shal," we  proceeded  in  total  disregard  of  the 
laws  in  such  cases  made  and  provided,  to  eject 
the  intruder  from  the  disputed  premises.  We 
did  more;  we  piled  the  gentleman's  wardrobe 
and  bed  clothes  just  outside  his  door,  and,  set- 


OUR  ONLY   SALOON.  55 

ting  fire  to  his  domicile,  gave  him  timely  warn- 
ing that  if  he  again  visited  the  place,  or  so 
much  as  set  his  foot  over  the  line  of  the  land, 
we  would  hang  him  to  the  nearest  cottonwood 
on  the  river.  The  man's  spirit  proved  fully 
equal  to  the  occasion,  and  he  informed  us  with 
a  sardonic  grin  that  he  would,  in  this  particu- 
lar instance,  take  the  will  for  the  deed ;  said  he 
considered  the  very  broad  hint  he  had  received 
just  as  effective  as  a  kick,  and,  bidding  us  a 
courteous  "good  night,"  left  us  in  possession  of 
the  premises. 

With  such  reminiscences  of  Mr.  Mallory's 
early  history  running  in  my  mind  as  I  listened 
to  his  utterances  from  the  bench,  concerning 
the  conduct  of  the  enraged  Greeleyites  of  the 
day  before,  it  will  scarcely  seem  strange  that 
they  made  no  very  profound  impression  on  my 
mind,  nor  for  that  matter,  increased  my  re- 
spect for  either  office  or  man. 

After  consulting  together  for  a  moment, 
which,  under  the  circumstances,  seemed  to  me 
a  long  time  indeed.  Justice  Pinkerton  turned 
towards  me  and  said:  "Mr.  Clark,  as  nothing 
of  a  very  serious  nature  has  appeared  in  evi- 
dence against  you,  you  are  discharged."  Then 
I  flew  down  the  steps  of  the  old  Exchange  ho- 
tel, where  the  trial  was  held,  with  the  fleet- 
ness  of  the  wind;  and  it  was  not  until  some 
time  afterwards  that  the  partner  of  my  joys 


56  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

and  sorrows  discovered  how  near  she  came 
to  catching  her  husband  in  limbo  on  her  arrival 
at  her  new  home. 

That  first  experiment  in  starting  a  saloon 
in  Greeley,  coupled  with  the  very  unsatisfac- 
tory results  attending  it,  proved  a  sufficient 
protection  against  its  repetition  for  several 
years.  We  were  greatly  censured  at  the  time 
by  many  of  the  outside  citizens  of  the  county, 
and  such,  in  fact,  was  the  sympathy  with  some, 
for  the  innocent  proprietor  who  had  thus  un- 
dertaken to  impose  on  the  community  a  nui- 
sance its  people  were  determined  not  to  toler- 
ate, and  whose  sacred  right  to  do  so  had,  in 
that  rude  and  forcible  manner  been  violated, 
that  a  few  of  the  least  respectable  and  least 
responsible  of  the  old  settlers  along  the  rivers 
openly  threatened  to  band  together,  reinstate 
the  injured  saloonkeeper  in  the  possession  of 
his  premises,  and  guard  him  with  their  rifles, 
if  necessary,  while  he  enjoyed  his  God-given 
rights  to  life,  and  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of 
his  happiness  and  profit,  in  making  other  peo- 
ple miserable.  It  must  be  conceded,  too,  that 
at  the  time  many  of  our  own  people  greatly  re- 
gretted the  "unfortunate  occurrence,"  but  the 
movement  to  interfere  with  us  from  outside 
had  little  encouragement  from  the  influential, 
responsible  element  among  the  old  settlers,  and 
as  to  actual  results,  it  can  not  be  denied  that 


OUB  ONLY   SALOON.  57 

we  gained  in  respect  and  influence  by  the 
means;  and  that  that  summary  proceeding, 
backed  by  a  somewhat  similar  process  on  one 
or  two  other  occasions  in  aftertimes,  although 
absolutely  indefensible  in  a  legal  point  of  view, 
did  more  to  keep  the  open  saloon  out  of  Greeley 
and  away  from  its  immediate  vicinity,  through 
all  the  intervening  years,  than  the  influence 
of  all  our  laws  and  ordinances  and  Colonial 
restrictions  has  been  able  to  accomplish. 
Greeley  is  still  a  temperance  town,  after  the 
lapse  of  nearly  a  third  of  a  century  of  time. 
It  has  remained  so,  not  because  the  saloon 
interests  were  afraid  of  our  laws,  but  because 
they  were  afraid  of  the  people ;  and  if  ever  the 
character  of  o.ur  population  shall  change,  so 
that  a  majority  of  the  inhabitants  would  tol- 
erate the  open  saloon,  we  may  be  sure  the  law 
will  soon  be  safely  ignored,  and  the  saloon 
make  its  appearance  as  a  fixture  among  us. 


58  COLONIAL   DAYS. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  WOMEN  IN  THE  NEW  HOME. 

To  a  majority  of  men,  among  Americans,  at 
least,  a  change  of  location,  of  residence,  of 
trade  or  profession,  or  even  of  moneyed  con- 
dition, is  a  matter  of  usual  and  expected  oc- 
currence, and  we  hail  a  majority  of  possible 
changes  as  so  many  harbingers  of  probable 
good;  while  we  contemplate  possible  loss  with 
philosophical  unconcern,  or  submit  to  it  when 
we  meet  it,  with  stoical  endurance.  So  we  have 
a  place  to  lay  our  heads  when  night  comes, 
and  temporary  protection  from  the  storm;  if 
not  a  house,  at  least  the  prospect  of  one  in  the 
near  future,  then  hope  supplies  the  rest.  Mean- 
time, whether  in  the  city  or  in  the  country,  or 
on  the  mountain  in  a  cabin,  or  in  a  dug-out  on 
the  plains,  or  in  the  sand  hills  by  a  water 
hole,  and  in  a  tent,  we  struggle  on,  and  call 
it  home.  But  with  the  women  it  is  different. 
To  a  majority  of  women  a  little  sea  of  fair 
weather  is  better  than  the  opportunities  of 
the  great  ocean  with  its  possible  storms.  In 
every  change  she  naturally  fears  the  worst 
rather  than  hopes  for  the  best;  and  so  they  be 


THE  WOMEN  IN  THE  NEW  HOME.         59 

not  absolutely  insupportable,  she  prefers,  by 
all  odds,  the  ^"ills"  she  has  than  to  ^^fly  to  oth- 
ers'' she  "knows  not  of."  Her  world  is  home. 
She  may  want  the  home  enlarged  and  im- 
proved; she  may  want  an  addition  on  the 
house,  and  if  she  does  she  will  want  it  higher, 
and  broader,  and  longer  than  the  old  one.  And 
she  may  possibly  come  to  want  the  old  one 
dug  under,  blown  up,  torn  down,  or  moved 
away;  but  if  she  does,  you  may  rest  assured 
that  she  will  want  the  new  one  built  exactly 
on  the  old  spot.  And  so  when  you  take  a 
woman  out  among  the  sand  hills  with  you, 
and  set  her  down  by  the  newly  constructed 
pine  shanty,  near  the  water  hole  under  the  sage 
brush,  among  the  prairie  dogs,  the  gnats,  the 
flies,  the  snakes,  the  skunks,  the  wolves,  the 
owls  and  the  horned  toads,  and  tell  her,  your 
heart  meantime  palpitating  with  joy  at  the 
great  and  glorious  prospect  around  you,  "Here, 
darling,  is  our  new  home,"  she  will  not  be  ;able 
to  see  it  anywhere,  not  a  vestige  of  it,  and  she 
will  generally  say  so  at  once,  and  sit  down  for 
the  time  being  and  cry. 

For  these  reasons  the  disappointments  at- 
tending the  early  settlement  of  Greeley  fell 
largely  among  the  women.  Many  men  were 
disgusted  with  the  situation  at  first,  and  not 
a  few,  in  fact,  sold  their  stock  in  the  enter- 
prise at  a  discount  and  started  back,  but  among 


60  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

those  who  stayed,  all  the  bitter  anguish  of  the 
outlook  was  suffered  by  the  women.  In  going 
to  a  new  country  to  look  for  a  home,  if  a  man 
takes  his  wife  with  him,  it  is  bad  for  the  wife. 
If  he  leaves  her  behind  in  the  old  home,  while 
he  looks  for  the  new,  it  is  generally  bad  for  the 
husband.  If  a  man  is  domestic  in  his  habits 
and  tastes,  and  is  attached  to  his  wife  and 
family,  then  when  he  is  absent  from  them  he 
is  very  likely  to  be  dissatisfied  with  himself, 
and  disgusted  with  everything  about  him;  so 
much  so  in  fact  that  nothing  will  look  normal, 
and  in  its  real  light,  and  he  will  often  be  in- 
capable of  forming  any  just  estimate  of  the 
advantages  of  the  situation  in  the  new  coun- 
try, no  matter  how  great  they  may  be.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  wife,  being  present,  the  man 
is  at  his  home  and  at  his  ease,  wherever  he  may 
be,  and  although  he  may  never  consult  her 
about  anything  in  the  world,  nor  pay  the  least 
attention  to  her  advice  when  she  offers  it,  and 
although  she  may  chafe  at  the  inconveniences 
of  the  new  home,  and  declare  she  will  never 
come  to  like  it,  nor  be  contented  in  it,  yet 
the  man,  satisfied,  on  the  whole,  that  the  loca- 
tion selected  is  the  best  for  himself,  and  his 
family  too,  will  generally  be  able  to  disregard 
all  her  little  complaints,  do  what  he  can  to 
make  her  comfortable  under  the  altered  circum- 
stances of  their  lives,  and  stay  right  with  the 


THE  WOMEN  IN  THE  NEW  HOME.         61 

situation    until    prosperity    and    contentment 
dawn  upon  the  family  group. 

Having  made  one  blunder  in  moving  South 
after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  I  had,  for 
myself,    determined,    before    starting,    not   to 
bring  my  family  West  until  entirely  satisfied 
with  the  place  as  a  permanent  home.    It  had 
been  my  purpose,  also,  not  to  send  for  my  wife 
and  family  until  I  had  completed  my  house 
from  cellar    to    garret,    and    had    everything 
cleaned  up,  and  absolutely  ready  for  occupa- 
tion.   This  was  a  very  wise  theory  of  action, 
if  I  had  only  been  able  to  carry  it  out,  but  I 
could  not.     I  had  scarcely  got  the  frame  up 
and  partially  inclosed  when    an    opportunity 
presented  itself  by  which  my  wife  could  come 
fin  company  with  some  one  who  could  help  her 
take  care  of  the  children  on  the  journey.    Mr. 
,  Meeker  was,  at  the  time,  about  to  begin  the 
[publication   of  the   Tribune  and   had   offered 
|L.  C.  Baker,  now  residing  at  Fort  Morgan,  a 
[position  on  it  if  accepted  at  once.    He  w^as  a 
f  younger  brother,  and  the  advantage  of  his  aid 
^and  assistance  on  the  long  ride  by  rail  was  not 
^to  be  overlooked.     She  came,  and,  of  course, 
[the  time  for  other  reasons  selected  as  best  for 
rher  to  come,  was    absolutely   the    worst    for 
[her  to  arrive.     If  I  had  brought  her  out  to 
ithe  proposed  site  for  the  building  and  set  her 
[down  on  one  of  the  trunks  while  I  dug  the 


62  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

cellar,  it  could  not  have  been  so  bad;  she 
might  in  that  event  at  least  have  advised  as 
to  the  location  of  the  cellar  and  perhaps  be- 
come interested  in  the  work.  As  it  was,  her 
arrival  found  me  with  the  windows  tacked  in 
position,  and  the  outside  door  hung  on  its 
hinges,  but  that  was  about  all;  the  .partitions 
were  not  yet  in,  and  mud  and  mortar  bestrewed 
the  floor.  Lime  plaster,  during  that  first  sum- 
mer, having  developed  a  decided  tendency  to 
tumble  from  ceilings  overhead,  a  belief  had 
begun  to  prevail  that  lime  and  sand  would  not 
work  the  usual  combination  in  Colorado;  many 
were,  therefore,  using  adobe  plaster  instead. 
Adobe  bricks  were  common,  and  a  few  con- 
structed their  dwellings  of  that  material.  A 
commoner  practice  was  to  fill  in  the  studding 
on  the  inside  with  these  bricks  and  plaster  di- 
rectly on  that  with  plain  mud.  After  long  con- 
sultation with  various  parties  who  had  already 
experimented  in  the  matter,  I  finally  decided 
on  the  latter  method,  and  had  been  engaged 
in  putting  on  this  coat  of  adobe  plaster  over 
the  bricks.  It  was  my  first  and  last  attempt  in 
fresco  work  or  plain  plastering.  I  had  been 
in  hopes  of,  at  least,  getting  that  job  accom- 
plished, and  the  wood  work  cleaned  before  the 
arrival  of  my  wife;  in  fact,  I  lacked  but  a  sin- 
gle day's  labor  of  attaining  that  end  when  I 
was  interrupted  by  the  arrest  and  trial  as  pre- 


I 


THE  WOMEN  IN  THE  NEW  HOME.         63 

viously  described.  When  she  finally  arrived, 
therefore,  although  the  greater  share  of  the 
plastering  had  been  completed,  and  the  lower 
part  of  the  wall  presented  a  tolerably  smooth, 
but  very  dark  apppearance,  there  was  still  a 
rough,  unfinished  portion,  and  the  floors  and 
the  casings  of  the  windows  and  doors,  as  w^ell, 
presented  a  horrible  black  and  dirty  look  to 
any  woman  of  neat  housekeeping  proclivities. 
I  remember  to  this  day  the  feeling  of  intense 
apprehension  with  which  I  was  absorbed  on 
the  way  from  the  depot,  as  to  the  possible 
effect  these  unfinished,  unpropitious  interior 
accommodations  might  have  on  her  mind  when 
w^e  arrived  at  the  house;  and  1  remember,  in 
particular,  the  striking  resemblance  I  myself 
suddenly  discovered  betw^een  the  inside  of  my 
abode  and  that  of  a  cave  in  a  mountain  side, 
as  I  opened  the  door  to  admit  her  into  the  sin- 
gle, large,  unfinished  room  of  a  building,  as 
yet  without  partitions  or  stairs;  and  I  noticed 
with  dismay  the  silent,  but  clearly  perceptible 
chill  which  the  unattractive  surroundings  gave 
her.  I  might  appear  ever  so  cheerful,  the  en- 
vironment was  certainly  not  calculated  to  in- 
spire cheerfulness  in  her.  However,  soon  re- 
moving her  wraps,  she  i)repared  to  set  things 
to  rights  as  best  she  could.  Such  a  dirty  stove 
and  dishes  and  dishpans    and    dishrags    and 


64  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

pots  and  kettles,  she  thought  she  had  never 
seen,  and  doubtless  never  had.  The  fire  I  had 
started  for  the  purpose  of  preparing  the  even- 
ing meal  did  not  burn  with  the  alacrity  she  had 
been  accustomed  to  see  as  a  result  of  her  labors 
with  wood,  and  she  undertook  to  accelerate 
matters  with  the  poker.  Of  course,  the  more 
she  poked  it,  the  less  it  burned;  in  fact,  it  went 
out.  To  cap  an  inevitable  climax,  she  had 
handled  the  coal  with  her  fingers,  just  as  she 
had  been  accustomed  to  handle  kindlings  and 
wood,  back  in  the  timbered  country  from  which 
we  came,  and  now,  having  extinguished  the 
fire  and  blackened  her  fingers  as  well,  while 
I  had  been  busy  about  something  else,  the  re- 
sult was  too  much  for  her  already  overbur- 
dened feelings,  and  turning  on  me  a  look  of  re- 
proach for  her  trouble  and  misery,  she  said: 
"Oh,  why  did  you  bring  me  to  this  wretched 
country?"  and  burst  into  tears. 

We  ate  our  first  meal  together  in  our  new 
home  that  night,  with  very  little  of  the  feeling 
which  prompted  the  old  saying  that  "A  dinner 
with  herbs,  and  contentment,  is  better  than  a 
stalled  ox  and  hatred  therewith."  We  didn't 
have  the  stalled  ox,  but  I  have  always  sus- 
pected my  wife  swallowed  much  hatred  of  the 
country  with  every  morsel  of  the  food  she  ate 
that  night. 


THE  WOMEN  IN  THE  NEW  HOME.         65 

In  a  day  or  two  after  that  I  took  her  out 
to  view  our  new  farm  over  the  river,  and  to 
try  if  I  could  not  interest  her  in  the  future 
growth  of  the  new  country;  for  you  see,  as  yet, 
I  had  not  plowed  a  furrow,  or  set  out  a  tree. 
But  already,  in  my  mind's  eye,  I  could  con- 
template the  beautiful  fields  of  waving  grain, 
the  blossoming  clover,  and  the  stately  row  of 
trees  around  its  border,  just  as  they  could 
actually  be  seen  in  after  years.  It  was  indeed 
a  beautiful  tract  of  land,  but  there  was  then 
nothing  more  that  could  be  said  for  it,  and  of 
course  my  wife  could  not  see  that,  any  more 
than  she  could  see  the  fields  of  grain,  the  clover 
blossoms,  and  the  rows  of  trees.  In  point  of 
fact,  you  could  have  seen  a  wild  goose  or  a 
jack  rabbit  anywhere  on  it,  or  within  a  mile 
of  it,  for  there  wasn't  so  much  as  a  decent- 
sized  sage  bush  on  the  whole  flat,  where  either 
animal  or  bird  might  hide.  And  so  she  refused 
to  yield  up  any  more  admiration  for  the  pros- 
pective magnificent  farm  than  she  had  pro- 
fessed for  the  new  home  in  town.  It  was  not 
until  years  after  that,  when  actual  fields  of 
yellow,  waving  grain,  and  blossoming  clover, 
and  green  lawns,  and  leafy  trees  were  as  pal- 
pable to  her  eyes,  as  the  mere  vision  of  them 
had  been  to  mine,  that  she  could  be  induced  to 
express  the  least  satisfaction  with  existence 


66  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

here;  and  even  at  this  late  day,  I  sometimes 
half  suspect  she  still  believes  the  clover  blos- 
soms sweeter,  the  flowers  brighter,  the  grass 
greener  and  everything  better  and  finer  on 
that  little  old  stumpy  farm  we  left  behind,  than 
anything  to  be  seen  in  the  adopted  land. 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  PERIOD  AND  HARD  TIMES.  67 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

AN  EXPERIMENTAL  PERIOD  AND  HARD  TIMES. 

Everything  went  forward  with  booming 
strides  that  first  summer,  and  in  an  almost 
incredible  space  of  time  four  hundred  houses 
had  been  erected.  We  talked,  then,  of  a  city 
of  ten  thousand  inhabitants,  and  although 
some  of  us  thought  this  estimate  a  little  wild, 
I  believe  a  majority  of  us  expected  to  see  a  city 
of  five  thousand  inside  of  two  years.  Lots 
went  up  with  a  jump,  and  business  corners, 
that  had  cost  fifty  dollars,  ran  up  to  five  hun- 
dred, and  even  a  thousand,  in  choice  locations. 

But  alas  for  human  hopes,  the  expecta- 
tions of  that  first  year  were  too  premature  for 
fully  ripened  fruit;  when  the  greater  number 
of  original  Colonists  had  arrived,  and  in  a 
measure  provided  themselves  with  houses  and 
homes,  building  stopped,  and  prices  took  the 
inevitable  tumble  predicted  by  Mr.  Greeley, 
when  he  made  us  his  one  visit,  and  it  was  not 
until  years  later,  when  the  country  had  made 
the  necessary  advance  to  support  the  abnormal 
growth  of  the  town,  that  property  in  lots  and 
buildings  again  reached,  on  a  substantial  basis, 


68  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

the  purely  speculative  values  of  that  first  sea- 
son. 

And  we  had  no  sooner  began  the  improve- 
ment of  our  outside  lands,  than  several  of  us 
became  profoundly  impressed  with  the  truth 
of  that  old  maxim,  that  "God  made  the  coun- 
try, and  man  made  the  town."  We  had  worked 
the  wonders  of  magic  in  building  the  town, 
but  when  we  began  to  meddle  with  the  sup- 
posed defects  in  nature's  handiwork  in  the 
country,  we  were  very  soon  impressed  with  a 
profound  respect  for  the  designs  of  the  Al- 
mighty. Our  canals,  intended  to  supply  a  de- 
ficiency in  the  rainfall  of  the  state,  were  found 
on  trial  to  be  altogether  inadequate  even  for 
the  small  acreage  in  cultivation  under  canal 
No.  2  the  second  year.  Not  many  of  us 
were  overburdened  with  money  when  we  be- 
gan the  struggle  with  the  desert,  and  those  of 
us  who  had  any  when  we  began,  soon  lost  it,  or 
expended  it  in  improvements,  which,  for  many 
years,  brought  back  no  profitable  return.  The 
first  attempt  at  general  farm  cultivation  re- 
sulted in  blank  failure  to  a  large  majority  of 
those  immediately  interested  in  production, 
and  as  a  consequence,  the  prices  of  land,  in 
the  country,  dropped  to  a  ridiculously  low  fig- 
ure, when  compared  with  the  values  of  after- 
years.  Good  eighty-acre  tracts  were  a  drug 
in  the  market  for  a  long  time  after  that  first 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  PERIOD  AND  HARD  TIMES.  69 

trial,  and  it  was  not  until  years  afterwards 
that  even  the  best  eighties,  and  in  the  choicest 
locations,  could  be  sold  for  a  thousand  dollars 
each.  The  history  of  a  single  tract  will  well 
illustrate  waning  confidence  and  its  revival 
in  more  propitious  times. 

In  the  Colony  drawing  of  lands  and  lots, 
Mr.  William  F.  Thompson,  for  a  long  time  a 
resident  of  Greeley,  secured  the  eighty-acre 
tract  next  to  mine,  under  canal  No.  2.  In  the 
fall  after  that  first  failure  he  offered  me  this 
choice  piece  of  land  with  the  water  right  for 
|650.  But  I  had  made  a  complete  failure  that 
year,  owing  to  a  lack  of  water  and  a  lack  of 
experience  combined,  and  although  I  had 
plenty  of  pluck  and  lots  of  faith  in  the  ulti- 
mate success  of  the  undertaking,  I  had  neither 
money  nor  credit  that  would  enable  me  to  pur- 
chase what  I  even  then  knew  to  be  worth  many 
times  that  sum.  But  profiting  by  our  experi- 
ence out  in  the  bluffs  tinkering  with  a  small 
ditch  and  a  scant  water  supply,  we  petitioned 
the  Colony  board  that  fall  to  levy  a  tax  and 
enlarge  the  canal;  with  the  result  that  nearly 
every  one  who  persisted  in  making  a  second 
trial  succeeded  in  growing  excellent  crops. 
Then  prices  began  to  stiffen  a  little,  and  my 
friend  Thompson  raised  the  price  of  his  land 
to  a  thousand  dollars.  I  made  a  good  crop 
the  second  year  of  my  farming  operations,  but 


70  COLONIAL  DAYS. 

was  by  that  time  badly  in  debt  on  account  of 
the  previous  failure,  and  I  dared  not  take  the 
risk  of  borrowing  the  money  to  make  the  pur- 
chase; thus  I  let  the  second  opportunity  slip 
away.  In  1875  Mr.  Thompson  offered  me  the 
place  a  third  time  for  $1,200;  but  now  the 
grasshoppers  were  upon  us,  and  I  did  not  feel 
justified  in  taking  the  risk  and  therefore  did 
not  buy.  In  1878  I  went  to  him  to  pay  him 
his  price  for  it,  which  had  now  grown  to  $1,800, 
but  while  I  had  been  waiting  to  get  returns 
from  my  crops  before  making  the  venture,  Mr. 
Driver,  one  of  the  original  Colonists,  stepped 
in  and  took  it.  In  the  spring  of  1879,  Driver 
becoming  a  little  discouraged  at  the  unusually 
dry  weather,  offered  to  take  a  hundred  dollars 
for  his  bargain;  but  I  had  meanwhile  invested 
what  money  I  had  to  spare,  and  again  I  lost  the 
opportunity.  Soon  after  that  Messrs.  Mason 
and  Bradfield  put  their  savings  together  and 
bought  the  place  of  Mr.  Driver  for  $2,000,  I 
believe,  and  after  farming  it  in  partnership  for 
two  or  three  years,  one  of  them  sold  his  half 
interest  to  the  other  for  $2,400.  I  need  hardly 
say  to  any  one  now  familiar  with  the  ruling 
prices  for  land  in  that  vicinity  that  it  could  not 
probably  be  purchased  from  Mr.  Mason,  who 
still  owns  it,  and  made  a  fortune  farming  it, 
for  $10,000. 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  PERIOD  AND  HARD  TIMES.  71 

During  the  long,  dull,  stagnant  period  in 
the  growth  of  Greeley  which  followed  the  set- 
tlement of  the  first  summer,  perhaps  a  quarter 
of  the  cheap  one-story  houses  originally  built  in 
town,  were  carted  out  into  the  country  for  use 
upon  the  farms,  and  from  that  time  clear  down 
to  as  late  a  date  as  1875,  or  even  later,  rents 
were  ridiculously  low,  and  many  of  the  houses, 
especially  in  the  summer  season,  remained  un- 
occupied. People  who  have  become  residents 
of  the  place  since  that  chrysalis  period  of  our 
growth,  could  hardly  be  made  to  realize  the 
contrast  between  the  Greeley  of  to-day,  with 
its  dozens  of  really  fine  houses,  its  hundreds  of 
neat  homes  with  their  closely  shaven  lawns, 
trim  gardejis  filled  with  shrubbery  and  flowers, 
and  the  straggling,  poverty-stricken  hamlet 
of  from  1872  to  1875. 

For  several  years  after  settlement  there 
existed  less  than  half  a  dozen  grass  plots  in 
the  place,  and  it  was  not  until  as  late  as  1874, 
that  I  remember  to  have  seen  a  lawn  mower 
in  Greeley. 

I  myself  sent  for  the  first  blue  grass  seed 
sown  in  town.  I  ordered  it  from  Lexington, 
Ky.,  and  distributed  it  among  the  members, 
during  the  sessions  of  the  old  Greeley  Far- 
mers' Club,  at  one  time  one  of  the  important, 
so-thought,  institutions  of  the  place. 


72  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

During  those  dubious  years  of  uncertainty 
the  very  few  among  our  residents  who  pos- 
sessed the  means  to  erect  good  houses  hesi- 
tated to  do  so,  from  being  yet  undetermined 
whether  to  make  permanent  residence  here  or 
to  emigrate  to  more  congenial  and  propitious 
climes;  and  those  of  our  number  who  pos- 
sessed the  requisite  faith  in  the  country  and 
really  did  all  the  hard,  faithful  labor,  and  made 
all  the  practical  experiments  leading  to  the 
ultimate  success  of  the  enterprise,  were  with- 
out the  means  to  build  as  they  might  have 
wished. 

For  a  long  time  thereafter  the  residences 
of  Mr.  Meeker,  of  Mr.  Holmes,  now  owned  by 
Mr.  Ewing;  of  Mr.  Nettleton,  now  owned  by 
Mrs.  Mead,  and  of  Mr.  Wherrin,  now  owned 
by  Mr.  Tuckerman,  and  perhaps  two  or  three 
others,  which  I  may  not  at  this  moment  be 
able  to  recall,  constituted  all  the  dwellings  in 
Greeley  which  made  any  pretentions  to  ex- 
cellence of  construction  or  tasteful  architec- 
tural design. 

During  the  winter  months  of  several  of 
those  earlier  years  the  farmers  and  a  large 
share  of  the  townspeople,  as  well,  subsisted 
almost  entirely  on  wild  game  for  the  meat 
they  consumed,  instead  of  patronizing  the 
butcher's  stalls.  Ex-Governor  Eaton,  who,  in 
company  with  John  Abbott,  now  living  at  Fort 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  PERIOD  AND  HARD  TIMES.  7S 

Collins,  kept  the  only  market  in  Greeley  at 
the  time,  could  recount,  if  they  saw  fit,  to  all 
who  might  wish  to  hear,  how  a  single  beef 
frequently  sufliced  for  the  demands  of  the  mar- 
ket for  a  week  at  a  stretch,  while  buffalo  hams 
and  shoulders  were  brought  into  the  place  by 
the  four-horse  loads  and  retailed  at  from  2  to 
4  cents  per  pound.  Antelope,  ducks  and  geese 
and  jack  rabbits  served  for  variety,  and  if 
everybody  was  poor,  there  was  at  least  enough 
of  good,  wholesome,  cheap  meat.  Almost 
every  man  had  a  gun  and  knew  how  to  use  it, 
loo,  and  there  are  very  few  of  the  original 
Colonists  now  living  in  the  town  or  its  vicinity 
who  at  one  time  or  another  during  those  pio- 
neer years,  did  not  contrive  to  bag  a  buffalo 
or  two,  as  among  his  trophies  of  the  chase. 
I  have  myself  a  very  lively  recollection  of  a 
two  weeks'  jaunt  by  a  party  of  six,  which, 
going  down  the  Platte  and  up  Cedar  creek  in 
December,  1871,  met  with  no  end  of  fun  and 
adventure,  as  well  as  considerable  hardship, 
and  returned  with  the  hams  and  hides  of 
forty-six. 

Another  party,  as  late  as  1874,  had  some 
very  fine  sport  in  the  vicinity  of  Pawnee 
Buttes,  and  as  one  of  the  incidents  of  the 
expedition  cornered  a  herd  of  buffalo  on  top 
of  one  of  the  plateaus  in  that  vicinity,  and,  ex- 
pecting to  bag  the  whole  bunch,  chased  them 


74  COLONtA.L   DAYS. 

off  a  perpendicular  cliff  of  rock,  afterwards 
found  to  be  twenty-seven  feet  high,  and  were 
surprised  and  chagrined  to  find  but  a  single 
crippled  animal  at  the  bottom,  when  the  rest 
had  scrambled  to  their  feet  and  ran  away. 

It  must  have  been  some  time  during  the 
winter  of  deep  snow,  1872  and  1873,  I  believe, 
that  the  antelope  congregated  inside  the  Col- 
ony fence,  at  that  time  surrounding  our  pos- 
sessions, and  coming  up  nearly  to  the  borders 
of  the  town  on  the  east,  almost  the  entire  male 
population  turned  out  with  guns,  on  horse- 
back, and  even  in  wagons,  and,  driving  the 
herd  through  the  deep  crusted  snow,  killed  and 
captured  more  than  one  hundred  in  one  after- 
noon. We  hung  the  carcasses  on  the  north  sides 
of  our  houses  to  freeze  and  ate  them  during  the 
long  winter  months  that  followed,  and  I  may 
add  that  a  number  of  us  old  settlers  acquired 
that  season  such  a  distaste  for  antelope  that 
we  have  never  really  hankered  after  any  since. 


SUCCESS   AND  FAILtJBE.  75 


CHAPTER  IX. 

SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE. 

There  are  a  number  of  the  original  Colo- 
nists left  who  will  never  forget  the  trials  and 
tribulations  of  that  first  summer  of  agricul- 
tural experiment  under  canal  No.  2.  I  can 
myself  recall,  and  with  lively  sensations,  too, 
the  experiences  of  my  first  effort  at  farming 
by  means  of  irrigation.  I  remember  that  we 
could  not  procure  any  good  seed  wheat  on  the 
Poudre  and  that,  in  consequence,  myself  and 
my  brother  Arthur  sent  a  team  over  on  the 
Thompson  for  the  sake  of  getting  wheat  that 
was  clear  of  cockle  and  sunflower  seeds.  We 
paid  three  cents  a  pound  for  it  and  got  stuck  in 
the  mud  on  the  way  home  at  the  foot  of  the 
bluff  this  side  of  Hillsboro  and  had  to  go  back 
for  half  of  it,  which  we  were  compelled  to  leave 
by  the  way;  and  that  at  last  when  we  had  got 
the  whole  precious  lot  together,  and  were  pro- 
ceeding out  toward  our  future  estates,  over 
the  river  there,  one  of  the  sacks  in  the  rear  of 
the  load,  by  some  inscrutable  and  diabolical 
means,  came  untied  on  the  way  and  scattered 
a  little  line  of  golden  grains  almost  the  whole 


76  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

distance  from  the  river  out  to  our  farms.  We 
paid  a  very  high  price  for  that  wheat,  went  a 
long  way  after  it,  had  no  end  of  trouble  in  get- 
ting it  on  account  of  rain  and  mud,  and  hadn't 
an  ounce  more  than  we  needed,  at  best,  and  it 
will  probably  not  be  difficult  to  understand 
our  feelings  when,  arriving  at  our  destination, 
we  discovered  the  loss  of  that  sack  of  three-cent 
wheat.  Every  one  has  heard  the  story  of  that 
New  Englander  whose  apples  rolled  one  by 
one  out  of  the  rear  end  of  his  cart  as  he  was 
going  up  a  hill,  until  when  near  the  top  he 
looked  back  and  found  not  a  single  apple  left 
in  the  box.  It  has  been  a  tradition  ever  since, 
handed  down  through  generations  of  New 
Englanders,  that  our  language,  rich  as  it  is 
in  wrathful  expletives,  is,  in  some  emergen- 
cies, an  utter  failure.  Ours  was  in  this.  And 
I  know  that  I  am  well  under  the  truth  when 
1  say  that  if  that  sack  had  been  filled  full  of 
the  almighty  silver  dollars  which  Colorado 
people  are  peculiarly  prone  to  worship,  and 
they  had  slipped  one  by  one  through  our  fin- 
gers, and  fallen  into  an  ocean,  we  couldn't 
have  felt  more  disgusted  with  the  result. 

There  are  times  when  one  annoying,  ex- 
asperating circumstance  after  another  pursues 
a  man,  until  it  would  seem  that  the  evil  Genii 
of  old-time  belief  holds  possession  of  his  fate 
and   works  all   things  together  for  the   bad. 


SUCCESS   AND  FAILURE.  77 

The  loss  of  that  sack  of  wheat  was  but  the 
forerunner  of  worse  disaster  and  merely  typ- 
ical of  ill-success  to  come.  We  had  been  de- 
layed in  getting  the  wheat  and  had  been  com- 
pelled to  make  two  trips  for  one,  when  we 
were  pressed  sorely  for  time  in  getting  in  our 
crop;  we  got  stuck  in  the  river  on  the  way  out 
from  town,  for  there  was  at  the  time  no  bridge 
across  the  Poudre,  and  we  were  compelled  to 
carry  the  sacks,  one  by  one,  out  to  the  farther 
shore  on  our  backs ;  and  when  we  had  sowed  it 
and  killed  our  best  horse  in  digging  the  lateral 
down  to  its  margin  through  the  desert,  with 
anxious  expectation  we  watched  its  feeble 
growth  day  by  day,  after  it  had  pushed  its  way 
through  the  ground,  and  nursed  its  sickly 
vitality  with  the  attenuated  little  stream  of 
water  that  came  creeping  down  through  the 
mirage  that  hovered  incessantly  about  the 
canal  above  us,  until  at  last  it  withered,  like 
a  false  hope,  and  died;  then  there  came 
a  hail  storm  that  would  have  knocked  seven- 
teen vigorous  lives  out  of  that  crop  of  wheat, 
if  there  had  been  any  life  there  to  destroy, 
and  there  wasn't  a  ghost  of  a  chance  for  it  if 
the  hail  storm  had  passed  by  on  the  other  side; 
and,  finally,  barring  the  rich  and  useful  ex- 
perience gained  that  season,  and  employed  to 
advantage  in  after  years,  that  entire  load  of 
wheat  might  better  have  been  sown  in  the 


78  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

road  rather  than  with  such  profitless  labor 
scattered  upon  our  farms. 

It  must  have  been  some  time  in  June  of 
that  year  of  experiment  over  the  river  that  an 
effort  was  made  to  establish  a  woolen  factory 
in  Greeley.  Previous  to  embarking  in  the  Co- 
lonial enterprise  quite  a  large  proportion  of 
our  members  had  been  engaged  in  manufac- 
turing pursuits.  Many  of  these,  by  reason  of 
previous  training  and  experience,  were  both 
disinclined  and  incapacitated  for  the  business 
of  opening  up  new  farms  in  a  new  country  with 
unknown  and  untried  conditions  of  cultiva- 
tion. And  many  of  them  had  joined  the  or- 
ganization with  the  hope  and  expectation  that 
in  the  new  home  all  the  arts  and  all  the  manu- 
facturing industries  would  flourish  at  once, 
and  in  just  the  same  balanced  proportions 
they  had  been  accustomed  to  see  in  the  other 
land  from  which  they  came.  They  were  not 
averse  to  owning  a  lot  or  two,  for  the  purpose 
of  speculation,  or  a  small  tract  of  land  which 
would  increase  in  value  as  the  country  grew 
older,  but  they  had  not  expected  to  follow  ag- 
riculture as  a  means  of  gaining  a  livelihood, 
and  it  was,  therefore,  very  natural  that  they 
should  become  dissatisfied  when  they  saw  the 
canals  and  the  agricultural  interests  of  the 
place  receiving  so  much  fostering  care,  and 
so  much  moneyed  assistance  at  the  hands  of 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILITEE.  79 

the  Colony  board.  Both  ditches  were  in  a 
crude,  unfinished  state,  it  is  true,  and  had 
proved  entirely  inadequate  to  the  demands 
made  upon  them  with  the  little  cultivation 
under  them,  even  at  that  early  day.  But  these 
unwise  brethren,  aided  by  a  few  of  the  busi- 
ness men  of  the  place,  who  thought  the  im- 
provement of  the  town  entitled  to  more  con- 
sideration than  had  been  bestowed,  and  who 
had  not  then  come  to  fully  understand  how 
entirely  their  own  prosperity  depended  on  the 
success  of  the  agricultural  experiment,  now 
insisted  that  the  canals  had  already  absorbed 
more  than  their  fair  share  of  the  Colony  funds 
and  asked  that  several  thousand  dollars  be 
given  in  aid  of  the  new  enterprise. 

A  meeting  had  been  called  to  consider  the 
proposition,  and,  if  possible,  secure  the  con- 
sent of  the  stockholders  for  the  desired  ap- 
propriation. Father  Meeker,  if  I  remember 
correctly,  stood  mildly  neutral  in  the  premises, 
willing  that  whatever  was  considered  best, 
after  full  discussion,  should  be  done.  General 
Cameron  warmly  espoused  the  new  undertak- 
ing, and  one  or  two  of  the  members  of  the 
board  were  opposed.  Matters  stood  thus  when 
one  evening,  as  I  came  down  town  after  a 
hard  day's  work,  wrestling  with  the  adverse 
conditions  of  the  desert,  I  met  an  angry  dele- 
gation of  farmers  on  the  street,  all  of  whom, 


80  COLONIAL  DAYS. 

like  myself,  were  sufferers  from  the  incapacity 
of  the  canals.  They  were  discussing  the  pro- 
posed appropriation  for  a  w^oolen  factory,  and, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  were  opposed  to  the 
scheme.  One  of  the  number  had  a  bunch  of 
wheat  in  his  hand  which  had  all  headed  out. 
It  was  in  the  same  starved-to-death  condition 
for  want  of  water  with  which  all  of  us  have 
since  that  day  become  so  familiar,  and  stalk 
and  head  together,  being  pulled  up  by  the 
roots,  did  not  exceed  a  foot  in  length.  I  had, 
at  that  moment,  forty  acres  of  just  such  look- 
ing wheat  on  my  own  farm,  and,  of  course,  I 
appreciated  the  bearing  of  that  bunch  of 
wheat  on  the  prospects  of  the  future.  The 
meeting  inside  the  building  near  by,  called  for 
the  purpose  of  securing  the  appropriation  for 
the  factory,  was  just  coming  to  order,  and, 
seizing  the  bunch  of  stunted  wheat  and  hiding 
it  under  my  coat,  I,  in  company  with  the  rest, 
went  in  to  oppose  the  measure.  I  do  not  now 
remember  who  was  the  chairman  of  the  meet- 
ing, but  I  do  remember  that  for  a  time  every- 
thing seemed  to  augur  success  for  the  new 
enterprise.  The  general  made  one  of  his  elo- 
quent, persuasive  speeches,  such  as  he  was 
always  capable  of  making  when  he  desired  to 
carry  a  point,  told  his  hearers  the  old  story  of 
overproduction  in  gross  products,  how  all 
purely  agricultural  countries   became    poorer 


SUCCESS   AND  FAILUBE.  81 

year  by  year,  unless  their  industry  was  supple- 
mented by  home  markets,  which  could  only  he 
secured  by  a  manufacturing  population,  etc., 
and  so  on;  all  of  it  excellent  as  mere  theory, 
but  quite  lacking  in  the  essential  particulars, 
facts  and  time.  For  even  at  this  late  day,  more 
than  thirty  years  after  the  events  here  re- 
corded,  and  after  a  number  of  unsuccessful 
ventures,  there  is  still  not  a  woolen  mill  in 
operation  in  the  state. 

When  the  general  closed  his  argument 
some  of  the  opponents  of  the  measure  gained 
the  floor,  and  among  the  rest,  myself.  I  told 
the  assembly  that  there  was  a  number  of  us 
farmers  out  in  the  bluffs  just  then  who  felt 
very  little  concern  as  to  what  we  would  do 
with  the  gross  product;  that,  on  the  oth(?r 
hand,  we  entertained  serious  fears  that  for 
some  time  to  come  the  gross  product  might 
not  make  the  bread  to  keep  us  alive.  Then  I 
pulled  that  bunch  of  wheat  from  under  my 
coat  tail  and,  holding  it  up  in  full  view  of  the 
audience,  I  asked  if  that  looked  like  glutting 
the  markets  of  the  world.  I  couldn't  talk 
much,  but  I  had  no  need  to  talk;  that  bunch 
of  drouth-withered  wheat  did  the  business;  it 
was  more  eloquent  than  a  host  of  tongues,  and 
before  the  meeting  closed  it  was  a  conceded 
point  that  the  factory   would  have  to   wait. 


82  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

It  did  wait,  and,  as  I  have  just  shown,  is  wait- 
ing yet. 

The  little  circumstance,  so  minutely  related 
at  this  time,  had  an  important,  if  not,  in  fact, 
a  determining  influence  on  the  after-destinies 
of  the  Colonial  movement.  We  had  arrived  at 
a  crisis,  and  collapse  and  ultimate  failure  might 
possibly  have  followed  but  for  the  favorable 
turn  in  events  as  resulting  from  that  meeting. 
A  majority  of  the  board  was  convinced  that 
the  thing  of  first  importance  for  the  success 
of  all  concerned,  was  the  enlargement  and  bet- 
ter management  of  the  canals.  There  was  suf- 
ficient money  yet  in  the  Colony  treasury  to 
make  the  necessary  improvement,  whereas, 
through  failure  the  pockets  of  the  farmers 
were  depleted.  The  board,  therefore,  made  a 
f50  assessment  on  each  water  right  in  No. 
2  and  temporarily  advanced  the  cash,  mean- 
time making  the  assessment  a  lien  against 
each  owner  who  could  not  at  the  time  make 
payment.  Those  who  had  teams,  many  of 
them  worked  out  the  assessment,  going  into 
camp  from  one  of  the  long  canals  to  the  other 
while  the  work  was  in  progress.  Other  mem- 
bers of  the  Colony,  who  were  out  of  work  at 
the  time,  though  not  directly  interested  in  the 
canal,  obtained  employment  at  remunerative 
wages  until  the  enlargement  was  completed. 
The  sum  advanced  by  the  Colony  board  was 


SUCCESS   AND  FAILTTRE.  83 

all,  I  believe,  ultimately  returned  to  the  treas- 
ury. The  crisis  in  our  affairs  was  thus  success- 
fully tided  over,  and  the  confidence  of  the 
farmers  restored  and  their  waning  courage  re- 
newed. As  a  direct  result  of  the  canal  en- 
largement excellent  crops  were  grown  the 
next  year,  and  from  that  time  on,  through  all 
the  varying  vicissitudes  through  which  we 
passed,  faith  never  wavered  and  ultimate  suc- 
cess became  assured.. 


84  COLONIAL    DAYS. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  HARD  WINTER — ^A  BULL  IN  A  CHINA  SHOP. 

The  success  attending  our  second  season's 
operations  under  canal  No.  2  was  fully  as  flat- 
tering as  the  first  had  been  discouraging.  The 
canal  having  been  more  than  doubled  in  ca- 
pacity and  the  distribution  of  water  having 
been  accomplished  with  some  order  and  regu- 
larity, almost  everyone  who  had  any  previous 
knowledge  of  farming  raised  good  crops.  My- 
self and  brother,  still  farming  together,  pro- 
duced that  year  1,500  sacks  of  potatoes,  1,300 
bushels  of  wheat  and  about  1,000  bushels  of 
oats.  That  was  before  the  era  of  harvesters 
and  binders;  the  self-rake  reaper  and  the 
"dropper''  still  reigned  supreme.  Mr.  Harris, 
one  of  our  neighbors,  bought  one  of  these  lat- 
ter machines  and  Mr.  Olin,  Mr.  Dresser,  my- 
self and  brother  made  an  arrangement  with 
him  that  he  should  cut  all  our  grain  and  that 
we  should  jointly  bind  and  shock  his.  Thus 
we  were  able  to  harvest  the  four  crops  with- 
out the  outlay  of  a  dollar  for  extra  help.  That 
will  appear  very  primitive  to  the  farmers  of 
this  day  and  generation,  but  in  such  small  be- 


THE  HARD  WINTER — A  BULL  IN  A  CHINA  SHOP.        85 

ginnings    some     of    the    greatest      ultimate 
achievements  of  men  have  originated. 

Those  were  the  days  of  sword  grass  and 
slough  hay,  from  the  river  bottom,  for  which 
all  the  farmers  under  our  newly-constructed 
ditches  were  obliged  to  travel  up  and  down 
the  river  from  five  to  twenty-five  miles  and 
pay  from  |8  to  |25  per  ton.  In  the  spring,  fol- 
lowing the  very  hard  winter  I  am  about  to 
describe,  it  brought  $25  and  f30.  It  was  very 
poor  feed  for  heavy  work,  when  grain  was  still 
scarce  and  dear  with  us,  and  one  of  the  first 
subjects  of  interest  to  us,  after  a  sufficient 
water  supply  had  been  secured,  was  the  matter 
of  forage.  I  wasted  |30  in  timothy  and  red  clo- 
ver seed,  which  I  sowed  in  the  spring  of  1872 
and  which  came  up  finely,  but  the  clover  all 
"heaved  out''  in  the  following  hard  winter, 
and  during  the  next  summer  the  grasshoppers, 
which  for  several  years  thereafter  were  to 
work  such  havoc  to  the  crops  of  the  Colony, 
cleaned  up  the  timothy.  I  must  not  forget  to 
mention  that  having  always  lived  in  a  tim- 
bered country,  one  of  the  first  things  we  did 
was  to  set  out  trees.  In  the  intervals  of  time 
between  putting  in  crops  and  beginning  the 
process  of  irrigating  them  I  went  down  on  the 
river  bottom  in  the  spring  of  1872  and  pulled 
up  young  Cottonwood  seedlings  froni  a  quar- 
ter to  a  half  inch   in  diameter  and  planted 


86  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

them  on  the  lines  of  my  farm  by  the  roadside. 
They  made  a  magnificent  growth  that  sum- 
mer of  from  four  to  six  feet,  but  in  the  hard 
winter  following  the  cattle  ate  them  all  oft' 
to  the  surface  of  the  snow,  w^hich,  however, 
did  not  seriously  injure  them,  and  they  came 
on  again  with  renewed  vigor  the  next  year. 

And  that  reminds  me  of  an  incident  or  two 
that  I  may  as  well  recount  here  as  elsewhere. 
When  the  Colonists  first  settled  in  Greeley 
this  was  the  center  of  a  great  cattle  range, 
and  the  cattle  men  of  the  time  very  naturally, 
and  very  foolishly,  as  well,  looked  with  dis- 
favor upon  our  operations  here.  Not  all  were 
influenced  by  motives  such  as  these,  but  many 
were,  and  much  ill  feeling  was  for  a  time  en- 
gendered, which,  as  a  lingering  result,  is  occa- 
sionally seen  cropping  out  even  to  this  day. 
The  Colonists  were  too  poor  to  put  up  indi- 
vidual fences,  and  accordingly  the  idea  of  one 
large  fence  to  enclose  all  our  possessions,  was 
soon  put  into  practice.  The  fence  was  at  first 
without  the  warrant  of  the  law  permitting  such 
fence  districts,  which  we  afterwards  secured 
to  protect  us  in  maintaining  it,  and  many  of 
the  cattlemen,  therefore,  paid  little  attention 
to  our  rights.  I  remember  one  day  when  I  was 
irrigating  my  wheat  the  second  time,  and  had 
about  ten  acres  of  it  all  under  water,  a  little 
party  of  cattlemen,  en  route  to  some  round-up. 


THE  HARD  WINTER — A  BULL  IN  A  CHINA  SHOP.        87 

or  traveling  about  the  range  for  some  other 
purpose  connected  with  their  business,  delib- 
erately rode  diagonally  across  my  grain,  then 
all  headed  out,  and  made  a  trail  of  crushed 
wheat  about  a  rod  wide  from  one  corner  to 
the  other.  I  was  naturally  indignant,  and, 
going  around  to  the  upper  end  of  the  field  to 
meet  them  as  they  emerged  on  the  other  side, 
I  remarked  that  it  seemed  to  me  this  was  a 
very  large  country,  and  that  with  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  square  miles  of  bare  prairie  all 
around  me  in  every  direction,  they  ought  to 
have  been  able  to  find  room  for  themselves 
without  traveling  directly  through  my  grain. 
But  they  looked  at  me  with  undisguised  scorn, 
and  only  took  the  trouble  to  inform  me  in  inso- 
lent tones  that  they  were  here  first  and  that 
this  was  no  farming  country  anyway. 

In  the  winter  of  1872  and  1873  occurred 
the  great  snow  fall  that  has  never  been  equaled 
or  approached  since  that  day.  For  a  period 
of  more  than  three  months  it  lay  upon  the 
ground  to  a  depth  of  more  than  two  feet.  A 
crust  soon  formed  over  the  top,  as  it  settled 
under  repeated  layers  of  three  or  four  inches, 
which  fell  as  often  as  the  weather  moderated 
sufficiently  to  thaw  a  little,  until  a  man  could 
travel  for  miles  in  any  direction  on  the  range 
without  breaking  through.  I  remember  that 
I  took  the  rammer  from  an  old-fashioned  shot- 


88  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

gun  one  day  when  I  was  out  there  hunting  jack- 
rabbits,  and,  probing  it  down  to  the  ground 
in  dozens  of  places  all  over  the  surface  of  my 
farm,  found  that  it  averaged  twenty-eight 
inches  deep.  Then  it  was  that  our  fence 
counted  for  nothing,  and  thousands  of  head  of 
starving  cattle  roamed  at  will  over  our  farms, 
invaded  our  stacks  of  unthreshed  grain,  and 
ate  the  little  hay  we  had  on  hand  for  our  own 
stock.  Corrals  were  broken  into  and  even 
granaries  proved  no  sort  of  barrier  to  the  starv- 
ing brutes  who  bellowed  by  day  and  by  night 
for  food.  There  was  an  old  bull  roaming  about 
the  country  at  the  time  which  became  famous 
for  a  long  time  afterwards  for  his  depredations 
and  escapes.  Nothing  could  stand  in  his  way, 
intact,  from  a  granary  to  a  dug-out,  and  no 
one  was  seemingly  able  to  kill  him.  His  hide 
became  very  soon  charged  with  buckshot,  and 
it  was  not  an  uncommon  sight  to  see  him  mean- 
dering about  the  country  with  one  or  more  lost 
pitchforks  dangling  from  his  sides,  and  which 
did  not  seem  to  annoy  him  in  the  least.  I  need 
hardly  say  that  this  bull  contrived  to  keep  fat 
and  sleek  in  that  season  of  unparalleled  disas- 
ter to  his  kind.  My  brother  had  a  little  tilt 
with  this  bull,  and,  as  usual,  his  bullship  came 
off  with  flying  colors.  Coming  down  to  the 
young  city  one  night  with  his  family  to  attend 
a  meeting  of  the  famous  literary  society,  which 


THE  HARD  WINTER — ^A  BULL  IN  A  CHINA  SHOP.        89 

at  the  time  afforded  so  much  instruction  and 
entertainment  for  the  Colonists,  when  they  re- 
turned to  their  humble  dwelling  at  a  late  hour 
in  the  night,  they  found  this  bull  in  their 
kitchen.  Uncontrollable  wrath  prompted  my 
brother  to  fire  a  charge  of  shot  into  his  retreat- 
ing flanks,  but,  although  at  very  short  range, 
it  had  neither  the  effect  to  accelerate  nor  to 
retard  his  flight  in  the  slightest  degree,  and 
for  months  after  that  he  was  still  the  terror 
of  every  neighborhood  under  the  canal. 

Such  were  some  of  the  excitements  and 
drawbacks  of  a  pioneer  people  in  their  efforts 
to  subdue  the  desert  in  that  early  day. 


90  COLONIAL   DAYS. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

SOME   DEAD-HORSE   REFLECTIONS. 

Oh!  what  farmer  of  Colonial  or  other  days 
but  has  at  some  time  or  another  sighed, 
groaned  even,  in  anguish  of  spirit,  over  a  dead 
horse,  "and  mourned  because  it  was  not."  I 
have  previously  noted  that  I  brought  a  fine 
span  with  me  from  the  South  when  I  came 
to  Greeley.  But  I  very  quickly  lost  one.  Hav- 
ing selected  the  lot  on  which  I  still  live,  and 
decided  to  erect  a  house  and  make  Greeley  my 
home,  the  first  necessary  operation  towards 
construction,  was  to  dig  a  cellar.  So  I  bor- 
rowed a  plow  and  a  scraper,  and  Baker  and 
myself  proceeded  to  make  the  excavation  our- 
selves. By  the  end  of  the  second  day  we  had 
nearly  completed  the  job;  on  the  morning  of 
the  third  Baker  went  down  on  the  bottom, 
where  we  had  our  team  picketed,  to  get  it,  and 
attend  to  feeding  and  harnessing  it,  while  I 
busied  myself  in  getting  our  breakfast.  Pres- 
ently Baker  poked  his  head  inside  the  folds  of 
the  tent  in  front  and  informed  me  in  dubious 
tones  that  one  of  the  horses  was  dead.  "Ah!" 
said  I,  always,  from  constitutional  habit,  look- 


SOME  DEAD-HOBSE  REFLECTIOI^S.  91 

ing  for  the  worst,  while  striving  for  the  best, 
"the  best  horse,  of  course."  "Certainly,"  said 
he.  Then  we  ate  breakfast  in  silence  and  fin- 
ished digging  the  cellar  with  pick  and  shovel. 

I  turned  the  remaining  animal  out  to  grass 
and  did  not  procure  a  mate  for  it  until  the  fol- 
lowing spring,  when,  previous  to  embarking 
on  the  unfortunate  experiment  in  farming  un- 
der canal  No.  2,  already  described,  myself  and 
brother  went  over  on  the  Big  Thompson,  where 
the  old  settlers  had  plenty  of  horses,  and  were 
always  willing  to  take  us  tenderfeet  in,  and 
bought  a  fine  half-blood  broncho  with  black 
rings  around  its  legs  and  a  stripe  down  its 
back,  for  |175.  It  was,  of  course,  well  broken; 
that  is  to  say,  I  suppose  it  must  have  had  a 
rope  around  its  neck  at  some  time  or  another, 
and  by  means  of  a  "snub  hitch"  about  its  lower 
jaw,  been  yanked  a  few  times  around  the 
farmer's  big  corral.  At  all  events,  the  next 
morning,  when  we  proceeded  to  harness  the 
scrub,  it  threw  itself,  in  true  broncho  style,  four 
times  in  less  than  five  minutes,  and  we  had  to 
break  it  in,  regularly,  thereafter  every  morn- 
ing before  proceeding  to  work,  all  that  season. 
Nevertheless  we  contrived  to  get  in  our  spring 
crop  without  serious  mishap,  until  we  had  to 
plow  out  the  laterals  in  our  grain;  then  the 
ground  being  dry  and  hard,  we  overstrained 
the  remaining  animal  of  the  original  team,  and 


92  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

when  we  went  out  the  next  morning  to  harness 
and  feed,  that,  too,  was  dead. 

I  now  looked  about  and  bought  a  very  good 
horse  of  old  Dr.  Scott.  It  was  not  a  large 
horse,  but  was  well  formed,  and  well  broken, 
and  I  felt  confident  it  would  answer  our  pur- 
pose. But  alas  for  human  horse  hopes,  it  had 
the  epizootic,  although  supposed  to  be 
recovering  nicely  from  the  disease  when  I 
made  the  purchase.  Neither  the  doctor  nor 
myself  had  the  remotest  suspicion  that  the 
case  was  a  serious  one;  all  the  horses  in  the 
country  were  suffering  from  the  disease  at  the 
time,  and  nearly  all  recovered;  this  one  never 
did.  The  ailment  degenerated  into  chronic 
catarrh,  and,  after  using  him  a  couple  of  years, 
I  was  obliged  to  shoot  him.  When  I  got  that 
horse  finally  paid  for  he  had  been  dead  more 
than  a  year,  and  must  have  cost  me,  in  prin- 
cipal and  interest,  fully  |250. 

When  I  first  settled  in  Greeley  there  was  an 
Englishman,  Pearson,  by  name,  who  selected 
the  lot  and  built  the  house  on  the  other  corner 
of  the  block,  where  Mrs.  Senier  now  lives. 
Pearson  was  not  a  practical  man,  and,  like 
many  another  original  Colonist,  had  the 
crudest  notions  of  business,  in  general,  and  es- 
pecially of  agriculture.  Pearson  had  with  him 
that  first  year,  two  Cockney  friends,  dependent 
in  true  baronial  style  on  himself,  who,  I  should 


SOME  DEAD-HORSE  REFLECTIONS.  93 

judge,  must  at  the  time  have  been  possessed 
of  three  or  four  thousand  dollars,  accumulated, 
as  we  understood,  in  some  sort  of  manufactur- 
ing enterprise  in  England.  He  soon  got  away 
with  it,  in  a  country  he  did  not  know,  and  a 
business  he  did  not  understand;  but,  while  it 
lasted,  he  made  things  quite  lively  in  his  new 
environment.  He  took  up  a  homestead,  not  far 
from  mine  over  the  river  there,  and,  prepara- 
tory to  making  the  necessary  improvements  on 
that,  bought  a  yoke  of  oxen  of  some  old  set- 
tler, paying,  of  course,  a  hitherto  unheard  of 
price  for  them,  and  then  sent  his  two  depend- 
ents up  into  the  foothills  for  lumber  with  which 
to  construct  his  claim  shanty.  They  were  gone 
nearly  two  weeks,  and  when  they  did  return — 
but  I  will  let  Mr.  Pearson  tell  his  own  story,  as 
he  did  to  me  at  the  time — "One  evening,''  said 
he,  "as  I  sat  smoking  on  the  back  porch,  what 
should  I  see  but  these  two  bloomin'  chumps 
coming  down  the  road  afoot,  and  one  of  'em 
'avin'  a  bridle  a  'angin'  hover  his  harm.  '  'Ello, 
boys,'  says  Hi,  '  'Ow's  this;  w'ere's  the  oxens?' 
Traded  'em  for  a  'orse,'  says  'e.  ^W'at's  come 
of  the  'orse?'  said  Hi.  ^Oh,'  says  'e,  '  'e  doid  hup 
at  Luveland's,  hon  the  way  'ome.' "  Pearson 
didn't  laugh,  but  I  did,  although  even  then  I 
was  suffering  from  a  dead-horse  experience. 

It  makes  a  great  deal  of  difference  how 
many  horses,  and  how  much  money  one  has 


94  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

as  to  the  way  he  will  look  down  on  a  dead, 
horse,  or  up  at  a  live  one.  In  1895,  now,  for 
instance,  I  sold  my  farm  out  beyond  the  river 
there,  that  I  had  cultivated  for  nearly  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  to  Charles  Mason. 
Horses  were  by  that  time  distressingly  cheap, 
and  I  had  too  many.  There  were  still  left  on 
my  hands  at  the  time  I  sold  the  place,  seven 
or  eight,  including  three  or  four  one  and  two- 
year-olds.  I  proposed  to  turn  them  in  to 
Charles  with  the  place,  and  he  did  not  want 
them.  But  I  told  him  he  had  to  have  them; 
he  might  kill  or  give  away  what  he  had  no  use 
for,  if  he  could,  in  time,  find  any  one  who  would 
take  them,  but  take  them  he  must  or  there 
would  be  no  trade. 

In  the  early  days  I  have  been  describing, 
however,  things  were  vastly  different,  and  my 
experiences  in  dead  horses  were  so  painful  and 
left  such  lasting  effects  on  my  exchequer,  that 
for  many  a  long  year  thereafter  when  success- 
fully managing  my  farming  affairs,  I  ap- 
proached the  stable  each  morning  with  appre- 
hension and  dread,  always  expecting,  as  I  cau- 
tiously opened  the  door  and  peeked  in,  that  only 
one  horse  would  greet  me  with  a  whinney,  and 
the  other  would  exhibit  to  my  accustomed 
vision  a  set  of  dead  horse  heels  turned  up  in 
the  morning  air. 


THE  FUEL  QUESTION.  95 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE   FUEL   QUESTION — HAULING   COAL   UNDER 
DIFFICULTIES. 

During  those  first  trying  years  in  the  set- 
tlement of  Greeley  the  question  of  fuel  was  by 
no  means  the  least  important.  We  then,  and 
for  years  afterwards,  had  but  one  line  of  rail- 
road to  the  mines,  and  the  cost  of  coal  was 
enormously  high.  From  six  to  seven  dollars 
per  ton  was  the  usual  price,  and  for  several 
winters  the  former  figure  was  the  minimum. 
Clothes  we  brought  with  us,  and  they  lasted 
until  we  were  able  to  buy  new  ones.  Wild 
game,  as  already  noted,  was  abundant,  and  an- 
telope and  buffalo  meat  a  regular  article  of  diet, 
and  very  cheap,  even  when  not  killed  by  the 
head  of  the  family.  Other  food  we  soon  con- 
trived to  grow  in  abundance.  But  coal  was 
cash,  and  cash  was  very  scarce  for  several 
years.  Trips  to  Crow  creek  for  cottonwood, 
by  the  farmers  over  the  river,  was  a  regular 
business,  and  it  was  even  brought  into  the 
town  and  sold  on  the  streets.  Wood  from  the 
mountains,  for  summer  use,  was  not  uncom- 
mon.   And  a  company  was  formed  for  the  pur- 


96  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

pose  of  getting  out  ties  and  wood  and  floating 
them  down  the  river  from  the  foothills.  But 
the  regular  source  of  supply,  to  many  of  us 
who  had  teams  and  nothing  else  to  do  in  the 
winter,  w^as  the  old  McKissick  coal  mine  over 
beyond  the  St.  Vrain.  Many  of  us  retain  memo- 
ries of  cross-lot  trips  over  the  hills  to  that  place 
for  coal  that  will  still  be  distinct  and  vivid 
when  all  other  earthly  scenes  are  receding  from 
view.  I  have  myself  some  lively  recollections 
of  frozen  toes  and  ears  and  frozen  bread  and 
butter,  suffered  and  consumed  on  these  ever- 
recurring  journeys,  and  they  have  a  habit  of 
turning  up  periodically  in  my  dreams. 

One  jaunt  in  particular  stands  out  in  bold 
relief.  The  sick  horse  mentioned  in  another 
place  had  gone  into  a  regular  decline,  and  it 
was  evident  that  his  days  were  numbered.  The 
winter  of  1873-74  was  at  hand;  the  coal 
bin  was  depleted,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  there 
was  just  about  enough  vitality  left  in  that 
horse  to  make  one  more  trip  to  the  mines ;  then 
I  would  turn  him  out  into  the  stubble  fields, 
where  he  would  soon  turn  up  his  toes  after  the 
custom  of  the  dead  horse  kind.  It  was  a  shorter 
trip  to  Platteville,  although  the  coal  was  of  an 
inferior  grade.  But  my  team  could  probably 
stand  the  shorter  trip  and  might  fail  me  on  the 
longer  one;  so  to  Platteville  I  went.  A  new 
shaft  had  recently  been  opened  over  in  the  val- 


THE  FUEL   QUESTION.  97 

ley  to  the  left.  I  had  heard  of  it  as  being  su- 
perior to  the  other  mine  in  the  immediate  vi- 
cinity of  Platteville,  and  I  made  for  it.  The 
day  was  a  stormy  one,  and  disagreeable  in  the 
extreme.  A  raw  east  wind  blew  in  my  left 
ear  all  the  way  over,  and  unpleasant  reflections 
goaded  my  mind.  The  grasshoppers  had  eaten 
up  my  corn.  I  was  badly  in  debt.  My  dead- 
horse  account  already  footed  up  two  fine  ani- 
mals, since  coming  to  Colorado,  and  the  list 
was  to  be  increased  by  a  third  in  the  near  fu- 
ture. I  observed,  in  fact,  as  he  swung  along 
the  road  with  his  ambling  gait,  that  his  vitality 
was  even  lower  than  I  had  supposed  before 
setting  out.  I  had  been  in  the  habit  of  working 
him  one  day,  perhaps,  and  then  letting  him  rest 
the  next,  to  recuperate.  Now  he  looked  as 
though  he  might  not  recuperate.  I  had  a  doc- 
tor's bill  that  was  not  yet  paid.  In  fact,  I  owed 
one  doctor  for  this  very  horse.  "Paying  for  a 
dead  horse''  has,  ever  since  the  first  experiences 
of  civilized  man,  been  regarded  as  one  of  the 
most  irksome  of  all  liquidations.  Other  annoy- 
ances obtruded  themselves  on  my  attention  in 
an  inopportune  manner,  and  by  the  time  I  ar- 
rived at  my  destination  I  never  felt  worse,  or 
of  less  consequence,  or  was  more  depressed  in 
spirits  in  my  life. 

And  now  the  dump  and  the  windlass  and 
the  miner's  shanty  loomed  in  view.    Cheerful 


98  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

sight,  with  the  dismal  sand  hills  in  the  distance 
for  a  background.  Drawing  nigh,  and  natur- 
ally looking  for  mine  boss,  or  weigh  man,  or 
cook,  not  a  living  soul  could  I  find  about  the 
premises.  I  had  made  a  mistake,  probably,  and 
most  likely  would  have  to  go  over  to  Platte- 
ville,  after  all,  or  return  empty;  and  in  the 
former  alternative,  should  be  on  the  road  un- 
til long  after  dark;  pleasing  reflection  to  an 
already  overburdened  mind.  Then  I  went  up 
and,  peeking  down  the  dismal  shaft,  thought, 
after  a  time,  that  I  detected  a  faint  clicking 
sound,  as  of  some  one,  possibly  at  work.  Some 
one  was,  and,  throwing  down  a  chunk  of  slag 
into  the  hole,  I  was,  after  a  time,  able  to  give 
notice  of  the  arrival  of  a  customer.  There  were 
two  proprietors,  and  not  wealthy.  They  did 
their  own  cooking,  mining,  hoisting,  and  sell- 
ing; and  it  being  near  noon,  they  came  up  out 
of  the  shaft  and  prepared  for  the  midday  meal. 
On  their  invitation,  I  repaired  with  them  to 
their  shanty.  It  was  not  a  gorgeous  affair; 
upright  boards  nailed  on  studding  after  the  ap- 
proved shanty  style  of  architecture;  lined,  of 
course,  with  tarred  paper.  Stove  in  one  cor- 
ner, set  up  on  bricks  and  tin  cans.  The  ashes 
had  overflown  hearth  environment  and  de- 
scended in  a  huge  pile  upon  the  dirt  floor.  A 
pile  of  straw  in  another  corner,  with  a  couple 
of  blankets  dumped  upon  it,  indicated  the  local- 


THE  FUEL  QUESTION.  99 

ity  of  night's  repose.  A  rough,  pine-board, 
cross-legged  table,  strewed  with  bones  and  bits 
of  yeast-powder  bread,  suggested  sumptuous 
repast.  A  molasses  can,  labeled  "Golden  Drip," 
very  dirty  on  the  outside,  and  a  pan  of  dried 
apples,  very  black,  made  a  feeble  second  to  the 
motion.  There  was  a  coffee  pot  upon  the  stove 
two-thirds  full  of  accumulated  grounds,  which 
the  proprietors  had  evidently  been  reboiling 
for  weeks.  They  invited  me  to  dine  with  them, 
and  I  suggested  that  they  dump  the  coffee 
grounds  and  make  tea,  which  I  offered  to  pro- 
vide. My  offer  was  accepted  readily,  and  the 
meal  was  soon  prepared.  As  I  enjoyed  the  hos- 
pitality of  these  gentlemen,  my  own  condition 
changed  for  the  better.  They  ate  of  my  bread 
and  meat,  and  I  ate  of  their  dried  apples.  We 
supped  sumptuously  of  our  joint  production, 
tea.  They  said  they  intended  to  buy  a  bedstead 
or  put  up  a  bunk  just  as  soon  as  they  got  ahead 
a  little  on  coal  sales,  but  they  were  in  debt  on 
their  lease,  didn't  like  to  incur  needless  ex- 
pense, and  were,  therefore,  roughing  it,  tem- 
porarily, until  they  got  a  start.  I  looked  around 
me  a  little  as  I  ate  and  began  to  grow  cheerful. 
We  only  know  our  own  condition,  relatively, 
and  by  comparison,  and  I  now  began  to  com- 
pare. A  man  is  rich  or  poor  according  to  the 
company  he  keeps.  I  was  now  in  poor  com- 
pany, and,  accordingly,  began  to  esteem  my- 


100  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

self  very  wealthy.    I  thought  I  had  known  pov- 
erty and  misery,  but  I  never  had. 

Dinner  over  I  prepared  to  return  to  Gree- 
ley. It  was  now  snowing,  but  my  mental  hori- 
zon was  clearing  rapidly.  I  mounted  my  load 
of  coal  and  whistled  in  glee  as  I  proceeded  on 
my  way.  The  skies  got  darker  step  by  step, 
but  my  sky  grew  brighter.  My  horse  began  to 
fag,  but  I  got  down  and  walked.  Later  he 
gave  out  entirely,  but  the  other  was  a  strong 
animal  and,  chaining  the  doubletree  back  to 
the  axle  on  that  side,  I  managed  to  keep  mov- 
ing on.  At  the  hill  this  side  of  Evans  I 
thought  we  should  never  get  up,  but  we  did. 
I  arrived  at  home  late  in  the  night,  wet,  cold 
and  hungry,  but  absolutely  cheerful  in  spirits. 
I  slept  well  and,  rising  early  next  day,  led  that 
horse  out  into  the  bluffs  and  shot  him,  still 
esteeming  myself  a  wealthy  man. 


A  LITTLE  GROUP  OF  MINOR  MEMORIES.  101 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

A  LITTLE  GROUP  OF  MINOR  MEMORIES. 

Who  of  the  number  of  original  Colonists 
still  living  does  not  vividly  remember  the  sea 
of  troubles  connected  with  irrigation  in  those 
earlier  years.  The  days  v^hen  the  old  settler, 
that  oracle  of  an  early  day,  told  us  that  no  irri- 
gation was  needed  until  July,  and  we  found,  on 
the  contrary,  that  every  green  thing  was  dried 
to  a  tan  brown  before  the  middle  of  June;  the 
days  when  we  were  patronizingly  informed 
that  only  little  furrows  were  needed  every 
thirty  or  forty  rods,  through  our  fields  of 
grain,  and  that  the  water  would,  obligingly, 
soak  from  bank  to  bank  between  them,  thus 
doing  away  with  any  necessity  of  fiooding, 
whereas  we  found  that  on  the  upland  a  young 
fresh  water  lake  was  required,  and  that  every 
square  inch  of  the  surface  must  be  covered. 
The  days,  in  short,  of  small  experience,  great 
expectations,  diminutive  ditches,  big  dykes 
and  general  disaster.  Oh,  yes,  all  of  us  who 
are  yet  alive  can  remember  the  troubles  of  that 
perilous  time.  I  can  distinctly  remember  my 
first  introduction,  by  inference  merely,  to  the 


102  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

host  of  troubles  that  were  destined  to  follow 
for  myself  and  all  other  experimentalists  in 
after  days.  I  had  gone  up  the  Poudre,  some 
time  during  that  first  summer,  just  from  cu- 
riosity, in  order  to  see  for  myself  where  the 
water  in  No.  3  came  from,  and  the  manner  of 
diversion  from  the  river.  And  I  remember 
that  while  there  I  read  a  most  suggestive  card 
pinned  to  the  head  gate  of  the  flume.  It  was 
explicit,  laconic,  direct  and  rude  to  a  western 
degree,  but  conclusive  and  convincing.  It 
merely  said:  "Take  notice;  whoever  is  found 
meddling  with  this  headgate  will  catch  hell 
and  a  great  deal  of  it."  I  often  reflected,  in 
after  days,  that  this  notice  was  portentious 
of  the  many  troubles  which  followed  in  the 
manipulation  of  water  by  novices  in  the  art, 
just  as  certainly  and  as  legitimately,  as  the 
punishment  so  positively  promised  the  trans- 
gressor who  should  meddle  with  that  gate.  In- 
deed, we  all  of  us  "caught''  it,  "and  a  great  deal 
of  it." 

When  Mr.  Meeker  was  writing  for  the  New 
York  Tribune  and  told  his  eastern  readers 
how  the  waters  of  irrigation  wobbled  down  the 
furrows  after  a  man  like  a  little  dog  at  his 
heels,  how  that  pleasing  description  must  have 
interested  the  citizen  of  that  densely  popu- 
lated city,  who,  of  course,  knew  absolutely 
nothing  about  the  matter  except  what  he  read 


A  LITTLE  GROUP  OF  MINOR  MEMORIES.  103 

in  that  letter.  But  meanwhile  Father  Meeker 
and  all  the  rest  of  us  were  nearly  sweating 
blood  in  our  efforts  to  make  that  little  water 
dog  trot  faster  down  the  furrow;  for  the  main 
furrows  were  very  long  and  very  narrow,  and 
who  that  was  then  with  us  and  not  gone  from 
us  can  not  remember  the  world  of  trouble  and 
tribulation  we  had  before  we  got  them  wid- 
ened sufficiently. 

What  wonder,  then,  that  many  of  our  ex- 
periences with  ditches  and  water  and  the 
water  supply,  have  taken  a  deep  hold  on  us, 
have  sunken  deeply  in  our  hearts  and  have 
at  last  resulted  in  a  set  of  convictions  which, 
like  our  instincts,  rise  above  reason  and  are 
neither  subject  to  review  nor  revision.  There 
is  still  abiding  with  us  a  suspicion  of  the  man 
above  us,  on  lateral  or  ditch  or  river;  that  sus- 
picion has  become  second  nature.  I  presume 
it  is  probably  the  same  in  all  the  irrigated 
countries  of  the  world.  I  suppose  that  under 
every  irrigation  system,  no  matter  where,  the 
man  above  another  on  the  source  of  supply 
is,  for  the  purposes  of  irrigation  and  water 
distribution,  regarded  as  a  thief  and  a  robber; 
and  if  his  character  for  honesty  and  fair  deal- 
ing is  absolutely  above  reproach,  then,  at 
least,  that  he  constantly  uses  more  water  than 
is  needed,  is  gradually  making  a  swamp  of 
his  premises  and  is  certain  to  ruin  his  crops. 


104  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

And  the  mutual  repose  of  confidence  between 
farmers  under  the  same  ditch  or  canal  is  even 
yet  touching  to  behold.  As  the  season  for 
general  irrigation  approaches,  two  farmers, 
conferring  together  regarding  the  matter,  in- 
variably agree  that  there  is  plenty  of  time, 
and  each  unhesitatingly  avers  to  the  other 
that  he  has  no  thought  of  beginning  before 
the  "middle  of  next  week.''  Then  each  shoul- 
ders his  shovel  in  the  shadows  of  the  evening 
and  starts  for  the  flume;  each  as  certain  as  the 
spectre,  or  Brutus,  before  Philippi,  to  meet  the 
other  there. 

Did  I  speak  just  now  of  the  old  settler? 
Ah,  I  must  not  yet  leave  him.  For  we  all  re- 
member him  well;  how,  having  been  here  long 
before  us  he  had  taken  possession  of  the  rich 
river  bottom  lands,  just  as  we  would  have  done 
had  we  been  here  before  him ;  how  he  was  sure 
he  owned  the  earth,  or  had  at  least  all  that  was 
worth  standing  upon,  right  under  his  feet;  was 
sure  the  bluff  lands  were  worthless  and  so 
stood  back  smiling  the  smile  of  superior  wis- 
dom, while  we  fooled  away  our  time  in  digging 
long  canals  that  ran  from  somewhere  clear 
down  into  nowhere  and  wound  in  and  out  and 
above  and  around  gullies  and  ravines  and 
draws,  onto  adobe  flats  and  ridges  of  sand  that 
wouldn't  grow  gourds  or  sprout  black-eyed 
peas.     We  would  hardly  suspect  it  now,  but 


A  LITTLE  GROUP  OF  MINOR  MEMORIES.  105 

even  so  shrewd  a  man  as  Governor  Eaton,  a,t 
that  time  one  of  the  best  friends  the  Colonists 
had  among  the  old  settlers,  confessed  to  me 
once,  and  freely,  that  he  laid  awake  nights  for 
at  least  two  years  after  we  began  operations 
out  under  canal  No.  2,  thinking  of  the  awful 
consequences  likely  to  ensue,  if  for  any  unfore- 
seen reason  the  river  farmers  failed  to  grow 
enough  food  to  keep  us  poor  Colonists  from 
starving,  and  that  for  a  year  or  two  after  we 
succeeded  he  still  laid  awake  nights  expecting 
us  to  ruin  the  country  by  overproduction. 

And  our  first  blizzard;  we  can  remember 
that,  too;  the  one  that  happened  in  the  fall  of 
1871  and  sent  all  of  us  into  our  houses  bare- 
headed, if  we  were  out  of  doors  and  lucky 
enough  to  get  in  again  that  night,  and  nearly 
froze  to  death  those  who  could  not;  and  our 
first  hailstorm,  that  visited  us  in  July,  1871; 
how  it  hashed  up  our  strawberry  beds  and  our 
melons  and  green  peas  and  mashed  out  our 
windows  and  then  sailed  out  into  the  bluffs, 
hilariously  chanking  its  teeth  and  licking  its 
jaws  and  looking  for  further  worlds  to  con- 
quer among  the  scattering  fields  of  grain  under 
our  canals. 

And  our  first  grasshoppers,  that  took  all 
our  first  fruits,  and  stripped  off  all  the  leaves 
from  our  trees  and  left  them  to  die,  and  ate 
up  our  young  lawns  and  our  onions  and  turnips, 


106  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

and  left  the  weeds  to  stand,  and  gathered  in 
the  growing  crops  of  wheat  and  corn,  and  flew 
into  our  eyes,  and  down  our  backs,  and  up  our 
trousers,  and  into  our  beds,  and  into  the  very 
dishes  of  food  as  they  cooked  upon  our  fires, 
and  then  laid  a  million  eggs  apiece,  and  con- 
tentedly died,  relying  on  billions  yet  unborn 
to  carry  on  the  good  work  of  destruction  next 
season. 

Oh,  yes,  all  these  are  memories  that  will 
cling  to  us  to  our  dying  days.  But  we  lived; 
and  did  a  good  work ;  and  it  will  last.  The  city 
we  founded  and  the  country  we  reclaimed  will 
be  our  monuments  when  we  have  passed  away. 
The  trees  we  planted  will  live  when  we  are 
gone.  Their  perennial  shade  will  discredit  the 
legend  of  the  desert  we  found  here  when  we 
came.  And  the  magnificent  canals  we  con- 
structed at  such  cost  of  sore  trial,  and  hard  toil, 
and  deprivation,  will  still  convey  life-giving 
streams  to  thirsty  fields  when  the  very  records 
of  their  origin  are  lost  to  mankind. 


THE  OLD-TIMER  AND  THE  TENDERFOOT.  107 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE   OLD-TIMER  AND   THE   TENDERFOOT. 

For  many  years  after  the  first  settlement 
of  Greeley  the  original  Colonist  was  by  the 
old-timer  dubbed  a  "tenderfoot."  The  term 
had  been  in  vogue  a  long  time  before  our 
arrival  among  those  of  a  still  earlier  date.  I 
need  not  explain  it;  it  fitted  us,  and  we  bore 
it  patiently  until,  in  turn,  we  could  apply  it 
justly,  and  effectively,  to  those  who  came  after 
us  in  a  still  later  day.  By  the  year  1885  the 
dawn  of  prosperity  had  attracted  quite  an 
addition  to  the  population  of  the  town  and  was 
beginning  to  fill  up  the  vacant  places  under 
our  canals.  In  1886  some  of  the  newer  set  of 
business  men  in  Greeley  got  up  what  they  were 
pleased  to  style  a  "tenderfoot'^  supper.  After 
supper  there  were  speeches,  toasts  and  re- 
sponses, and  to  one  of  these,  "The  Old-Timers," 
I  was  asked  to  respond,  and  did  so,  as  follows : 

"Sisters  of  the  Sensitive  Sole  and  Brothers 
of  the  Susceptible  Hoof — You  have  met  to- 
night, I  presume,  to  felicitate  one  another  on 
your  happy  arrival  and  prosperous  settlement 
in  the  new  country,  and  your  fortunate  escape 


108  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

from  the  old.  You  came  a  little  late,  to  be 
sure,  but  considering  the  cornbread  of  your 
native  hills,  and  the  bacon  and  molasses  of  the 
miasmatic  yalleys  jou  left  behind,  you  are 
justified,  I  think,  in  believing  yourselves  ^bet- 
ter late  than  never.'  If  I  understand  my  sur- 
roundings and  the  object  of  the  meeting,  this 
is  a  tenderfoot  gathering — so-called — in  con- 
tradistinction from  animals  and  men  who  took 
residence  earlier;  as,  for  instance,  the  wolf 
and  the  bison,  and  the  ^old  settler,'  who,  by 
natural  inference,  from  much  valuable  experi- 
ence and  some  travel,  have  come  to  possess 
wiry  consciences,  and  unyielding  soles.  It  is 
well,  we  can  not  be  too  careful  in  such  mat- 
ters; w^e  ought  to  draw  the  line  somewhere, 
and  if  we  put  it  between  '75  and  '76, 
I  think  it  will  sufficiently  separate  all 
the  beautiful  white  sheep  from  the  entirely 
unlovely  goats.  I  am  not  without  a  sense  of 
poetic  justice  in  the  matter,  ladies  and  gentle^ 
men,  for  I  remember  a  painful  distinction  of 
a  similar  nature,  by  which,  at  one  time,  an 
arbitrarily  line  being  drawn  between  '59 
and  '60,  an  impassable  gulf  was  opened  up 
between  the  early  settlers  of  the  territory  of 
Colorado;  and  very  much  to  my  chagrin,  too, 
for  coming  in  the  latter  year,  I  can  never  for- 
get the  unutterable  scorn  and  profound  con- 
tempt with  which  the  heroes  of  '58  and  '59  re- 


THE  OLD-TIMER  AND  THE  TENDERFOOT.  109 

garded  all  population  of  a  later  date.  It  was 
not  until  after  the  lapse  of  twenty  years  or 
more  that  the  Society  of  Colorado  Pioneers 
finally  resolved  to  admit  to  membership  the 
settlers  of  '60  and  '61;  and  such  is  the  lasting 
and  debasing  effect  of  long-continued  servi- 
tude and  ostracism  on  character  that  I  have 
never  had  the  courage  to  join.  As  for  my  part 
and  place  in  the  deliberations  of  the  evening, 
fellow  citizens,  I  have  little  doubt  that  deli- 
cate considerations  alone  have  prompted  the 
invitation.  Old  settlers  are  proverbially  hun- 
gry, and  tender  memories  and  tough  yarns  are 
known  to  course  through  their  brains  and  rip- 
ple off  their  tongues  as  naturally  as  the  Platte 
gathers  the  spring  flood  from  the  melting 
snows  on  the  mountain  side  and  rushes  down 
to  the  thirsty  land  below.  Expanded  vision, 
expanded  ideas  and  distended  veracity  seem 
to  be  well-nigh  inseparable  advantages  and 
drawbacks  resulting  from  early  settlement  in 
any  new  country.  We  mean  well,  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  and  the  flesh  is  willing,  but  the 
spirit,  contrary  to  Scripture,  is  very  weak.  You 
all  of  you  doubtless  remember  how  Caleb  and 
Josh,  on  the  return  from  the  promised  land, 
were  careful  to  take  along  with  them  the  ripe 
fruits  of  the  new  country  suspended  between 
them  from  a  pole.  To  me,  ladies  and  gentle- 
men, that  has  always  remained  a  significant 


110  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

fact.  Caleb  and  Josh  had  that  matter  down 
pat;  they  knew  that  a  man,  disliking  a  coun- 
try, would  always  misrepresent  it  and  be  be- 
lieved, and  that  a  man,  loving  his  adopted 
land,  w*ould  always  lie  for  it  and  have  his  evi- 
dence discounted.  Wise  travelers  as  they 
were,  they  knew  better  than  to  trust  to  their 
memories,  or  the  incredulous  kindness  they 
left  behind  them,  and  so  they  carried  the 
proofs  back  with  them. 

I  can't  even  guess  how  well  I  may  be  able 
to  satisfy  you  with  what  1  shall  have  to  say, 
but  if  you  merely  desired  the  presence  of  a 
genuine  old  settler  and  an  early  pioneer  among 
you,  then  I  ought  to  be  able  to  fill  the  bill  to 
perfection;  for  I  am  a  natural-born  pioneer, 
and  the  son,  as  well,  of  a  long  line  of  pioneers 
before  me.  I  never  saw  a  railway,  nor  even  a 
steamboat,  until  I  was  nineteen  years  old,  and 
with  the  very  first  toot  of  the  iron  horse  in  the 
old  neighborhood,  I  hopped  promptly  down 
from  the  home  perch,  and  made  a  fresh  break 
for  the  West.  We  have  been  here,  my  fellow 
pioneers,  for  the  longest  period  we  have  re- 
sided in  any  one  place  for  nearly  ten  genera- 
tions in  the  past,  and  perhaps  by  the  time  the 
epidermis  of  your  nether  extremities  has  suf- 
ficiently hardened  to  repel  reproach,  and  your 
consciences  become  suflScientlycalous  for  tough 
yarns  yourselves,  we  shall  have  hied  to  newer 


THE  OLD-TIMEB  AND  THE  TENDERFOOT.  Ill 

lands.  Meanwhile  I  have  a  little  germ  of  truth, 
which  has  been  expanding  in  my  mind  like  the 
proverbial  mustard  seed,  and  growing  like  a 
green  bay  tree  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century 
of  time.  I  could  entertain  you,  or  at  least  my- 
self, for  hours  together,  but  for  the  fatal  fact 
that  you  want  to  talk  some  yourselves,  and 
two  parties  to  a  conversation  constitute  the 
one  insurmountable  obstacle  to  an  old  settler's 
tongue. 

"Under  the  circumstances,  therefore,  I  shall 
not  recount  to  you  all  the  old,  old  stories  of 
mountain  and  plain  and  the  Indians,  and  ever- 
lasting snow,  but  shall  confine  my  efforts  to 
times  of  recent  date,  in  which  you  naturally 
feel  more  interest,  as  being  more  nearly  con- 
nected with  yourselves.  Of  the  time  when  the 
little  settlement  of  Colonists,  under  Father 
Meeker  and  General  Cameron  and  mysterious 
Providence,  struggled  for  an  existence  without 
shade  from  the  sun  or  protection  from  the 
winds,  on  a  barren  soil,  in  an  arid  atmosphere 
and  under  a  blazing  sky.  Well,  my  friends,  if 
in  getting  here  a  little  late  in  the  day  you  for- 
feited a  little  of  the  hearty  zest  that  comes 
only  with  actual  adventure,  you  at  least 
avoided  much  that  you  need  neither  miss  nor 
mourn.  When  you  got  here,  for  instance,  and 
found  all  the  choice  corner  lots  in  the  hands 
of  those  who  came  before  you,  and  an  unrea- 


112  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

sonable  inclination  on  the  part  of  owners  to 
hold  on  to  them  at  that,  I  have  no  doubt  that, 
considering  the  size  of  our  mountains,  corner 
lots  seemed  unreasonably  high;  but  bless  you, 
my  friends,  you  had  no  idea  what  they  cost 
us.  You  didn't  know,  to  begin  at  the  first,  that 
we  bought  a  good  share  of  the  town  site  three 
times  and  paid  for  it  every  time  in  advance; 
and  you  have  no  very  distinct  recollection  of 
the  joys  of  that  first  winter  after  settlement, 
when  a  large  portion  of  the  most  intelligent 
community  west  of  the  Mississippi  subsisted 
principally  on  baked  squash  and  salt;  but  al- 
low me  to  assure  you,  on  the  honor  of  an  orig- 
inal Colonist,  that  we  did,  and  that  many  of 
us  can  taste  it  yet;  or  that  in  the  terrible  win- 
ter of  72  and  '73,  when  the  snow  laid  on  the 
ground  120  days,  three  feet  deep  on  the  level, 
the  entire  community,  regardless  of  caste  or 
social  standing,  or  previous  condition  of  af- 
fluence, was  confined  to  a  diet  of  dried  ante- 
lope— dried  on  the  hoof  and  before  death — 
and  stale  buffalo  meat,  and  considered  it  good. 
But  such,  indeed,  are  the  facts;  facts,  too, 
which  need  excite  no  wonder,  when  you  come 
to  consider  that  states  of  the  mind  and  condi- 
tions of  the  stomach  enter  largely  into  the 
process  of  digestion,  and  that  in  the  absence 
of  bread  even  boiled  crow  is  often  thought  bet- 
ter than  no  meat. 


THE  OLD-TIMER  AND  THE  TENDERFOOT.  113 

"Those  were  the  days,  my  friends,  of  com- 
paratively pure  democracy,  in  occupation,  in 
social  intercourse,  in  habits  of  thought  and 
feeling  in  Greeley.  When  Johnson  had  no 
mill,  no  city  residence,  no  colossal  hotel  and 
had  only  recently  abandoned  the  road  and  the 
bull  train,  with  its  weekly  trip  to  the  moun- 
tain towns,  laden  with  flour,  grain  and  hay. 
You  would  hardly  suspect  our  dignified  fellow 
citizen,  Mr.  Johnson,  of  ever  having  peddled 
hay  in  the  streets  of  Central  City,  at  3  cents 
a  pound,  but  all  the  very  old  settlers  say  he 
did.  Then  there  was  ^Our  Judd,'  at  that  time 
an  honest  granger  from  up  the  creek,  who 
chewed  plug  tobacco  and  wore  no  collar  and 
wasn't  sure  which  way  the  wind  was  going 
to  blow,  but  was  w^atching  the  main  chance, 
and  generally  struck  it  at  that;  and  Sam 
Wright,  who  lived  in  a  shanty  and  dug  cellars 
and  wells  for  his  neighbors  and  did  chores  and 
ran  errands;  and  Doctor  Law,  as  well,  who 
manufactured  ^doby  bricks'  for  the  trade  and 
patiently  waited  for  paying  patients;  and  Pro- 
fessor Boyd,  who  wore  long  hair  and  wrote 
poetry  and  discussed  woman's  rights  and  at- 
tended the  Farmer's  club  along  with  all  the 
other  notable  men  of  the  place.  Then  there 
was  Honest  Ben  Eaton,  too,  who  wore  overalls 
and  a  woolen  shirt  open  at  the  neck  and  ran  a 
meat  market  and  made  ditches  for  the  Greeley- 


114  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

ites  and  farmed  and  sided  with  the  Colonists 
in  all  their  quarrels  with  the  outside  precincts, 
and  was,  no  doubt,  even  then  laying  his  pipes 
for  the  office  of  governor;  and,  lastly,  myself, ^ 
who  rode  in  a  lumber  wagon,  on  a  flat  board, 
without  springs,  and  had  a  perpetually  peeled 
nose,  attended  conventions  and  quarrelled 
with  them  all,  wrote  articles  on  agriculture 
and  irrigation  and  worked  fourteen  hours  a 
day  on  the  farm. 

"Those  were  the  days,  my  friends,  when, 
household  help  being  scarce  and  money  to  em- 
ploy it  scarcer  still,  a  majority  of  the  male 
*  members  of  this  community  helped  the  women 
wash  and  iron  regularly  every  Monday  morn- 
ing and  Tuesday  afternoon.  Allow  me  to 
state  to  you  as  a  solemn  fact,  ladies  and  gen- 
tlemen, that  even  as  late  as  '74  and  '75,  when 
Governor  Eaton  lived  opposite  to  me  on  the 
back  side  of  my  block  here  in  Greeley,  punc- 
tually at  a  quarter  past  eight  every  pleasant 
Monday  morning  in  the  summer  season,  I 
used  to  exchange  salutations  with  him  across 
lots  from  my  back  porch,  as  we  both  bobbed 
up  and  down  on  the  boards,  with  our  hands  in 
the  suds.  Even  Colonel  White  and  George 
West  regularly  engaged  in  the  felicities  of  the 
tub  and  the  wringer  and  the  clothes  line  in 
those  early  days.  The  colonel's  wife  often  had 
to  scold  him,  to  be  sure,  because  he  would  insist 


THE  OLD-TIMER  AND  THE  TENDERFOOT.  115 

on  stopping  tp  swap  stories  with  the  boys  as 
they  passed  dpwn  the  sidewalk,  where  he  was 
at  work  in  the  shade  of  the  lilacs,  but  he  con- 
formed to  the  custom  cheerfully  for  all  that, 
and  even  Judge  Hawks,  who  had  no  family 
of  his  own  at  the  time,  invariably  helped  his 
landlady  get  through  with  her  heavy  washing 
and  hung  out  the  clothes  on  the  line. 

"Such,  my  friends,  were  the  simple  habits 
and  tastes  of  the  early  pioneers  in  the  city  of 
Greeley,  now  famous  all  over  the  world  for 
its  pleasant  homes.  You  can  scarcely  con- 
ceive of  the  changes  wrought  since  that  early 
day,  when,  at  the  call  of  its  founders,  a  rude 
collection  of  huts  and  dugouts  suddenly  occu- 
pied the  gravelly,  sandy  plain,  which  never  be- 
fore had  mound  or  bush  or  tree  upon  its  sur- 
face. The  blasting  winds,  with  nothing  but  our 
frail  tenements  in  their  path  to  break  their 
force,  shook  us,  in  seeming  wrath,  at  our  pre- 
sumption. They  howled  by  day,  and  the  wolves 
coming  down  from  the  hills  in  the  darkness 
and  settling  themselves  on  their  haunches  in 
the  streets  in  front  of  our  very  doors,  howled 
all  night.  The  perpetual  sunshine  of  a  rain- 
less sky  beat  down  upon  us  from  above  and 
reflected  from  a  treeless,  leafless  plain  be- 
neath us,  blistered  our  tender  feet  and  scorched 
our  lips  and  hands.  The  robbins  and  the 
meadow  larks  had  not  yet  come  to  live  among 


116  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

us;  only  the  silent  watchers  of  the  desert,  the 
owl  and  the  hawk,  sat  in  the  sandy  plain, 
blinking  their  horrid  eyes  and  waiting  for 
prey,  while  the  wild  dove,  with  her  mournful 
note,  chanted  a  dispiriting  lullaby  in  a  sad  and 
lonely  land.  Every  scanty  flower  of  the  plain 
had  a  double  row  of  briars  up  and  down  its 
short  stem;  every  shrub  had  thorns  on  its  rigid 
branches  to  preserve  it  sacred  from  touch; 
every  bush  had  a  snake  coiled  up  under  it,  and 
every  snake  was  ^pizen'  and  ready  to  bite. 

"These,  dear  friends  of  a  later  day,  are  a 
few  of  the  disadvantages  of  environment  which 
you  missed  in  coming  in  '75  and  '76  instead  of 
in  '70  and  '71.  Now  note  the  happy  change. 
The  dreaded  grasshopper  is  gone,  let  us  hope, 
forever;  lofty  trees,  with  waving  branches,  now 
break  the  force  of  the  terrible  winds  which 
used  to  sweep  unhindered  over  the  town.  The 
snakes  and  the  wolves  have  retired  to  the 
waste  places  among  the  hills.  The  glittering 
plain,  with  its  deceptive  mirage,  has  given 
place  to  real  lakes  and  pools  and  fields  of  wav- 
ing grain.  Song  birds  twitter  in  every  bough, 
lovely  flowers  nod  softly  in  the  tempered 
breeze  and  velvety  lawns  of  unsurpassed  ver- 
dure glisten  with  dew  in  the  morning  sun.  The 
old  landmarks  of  Colonial  days  are  disappear- 
ing from  view,  and,  fresh  from  the  ashes  of 
their  decay,  are  springing   tasteful    cottages, 


THE  OLD-TIMER  AND  THE  TENDERFOOT.  117 

stately  mansions  and  lofty  spires,  in  token  of 
faith  in  the  new  home.  Fellow  pioneers,  as  I 
speak  to  you  myriads  of  memories  of  that 
early  day  come  teeming  up  from  the  treasures 
of  the  brain  and  demand  expression  from  my 
tongue.  Time  and  the  necessities  of  the  occa- 
sion have  permitted  me  but  the  merest  hasty 
glance  at  the  past;  but  some  time  in  the  fu- 
ture I'll  write  a  book  or  hire  a  hall,  and,  get- 
ting the  old  settler  and  the  tenderfeet  together 
inside,  I'll  lock  the  door  and  talk  you  all  to 
death." 


118  COLONIAL   DAYS. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

OUR   CLIMATE. 

Colorado  is  a  wonderful  country;  we  like 
it,  dote  on  it,  and  would  not  exchange  it  for 
any  other.  It  is  certainly  the  best  all-around 
climate  in  the  world  and  undoubtedly  we  could 
give  points  and  win  in  a  comparison  of  ad- 
vantages with  any  land  on  earth.  Just  think 
of  some  of  the  small  evils,  which,  counted  sin- 
gly, do  not  amount  to  much,  but  which, 
grouped  together  as  against  any  state  or  lo- 
cality, are  well-nigh  too  annoying  for  human 
enduraAce.  No  fleas  here,  no  mosquitoes  to 
speak  of,  no  chiggers,  no  ticks,  now  and  then  a 
bug — so  ladies  tell  us — no  severe  weather  in 
the  winter  five  seasons  out  of  six,  the  most  de- 
lightful autumn  weather  always,  that  exists 
on  the  globe,  no  cyclones,  no  earthquakes,  no 
chills  and  fever,  no  snow  in  the  winter,  no  mud 
in  the  summer,  no  sunstroke,  no  mad-dogs, 
plenty  of  coal,  no  timber  to  clear,  no  brush  to 
burn,  no  wood  to  chop,  no  land  to  grub.  And, 
finally,  to  offset  all  these  well-nigh  unparalleled 


OUR  CLIMATE.  119 

advantages,  but  a  single  real  inconvenience, 
periodic,  persistent  and  permanent  in  its  at- 
tacks, it  is  true,  but  not  absolutely  unbear- 
able— just  an  insinuating,  all-pervasive  west 
wind,  which,  after  a  hot  day  in  summer  or  a 
fair  day  in  spring  or  an  unusually  pleasant  day 
in  winter,  blows  sand  in  one's  eyes  and  through 
one's  hair  and  down  his  back  and  up  his  trous- 
ers and  into  his  shoes  and  inside  his  watch; 
only  this  slight  annoyance  and  nothing  more. 

Oh,  yes,  on  second  thought,  there  is  one 
thing  more  that  is  not  pleasant,  because,  to  tell 
the  truth,  aside  from  the  winds,  we  generally 
have  a  diabolical  spring,  which,  considering 
that  spring  is  variable  and  unreliable  almost 
anywhere,  doesn't  make  ours  the  more  endur- 
able; a  sort  of  elastic,  convertible,  interchange- 
able, late  winter,  early  summer,  misguided 
spring,  that  often  runs  the  thermometer  up  to 
80  the  last  of  February  and  down  to  zero  in 
March  and  above  fever  heat  in  April  and 
through  the  freezing  point,  with  now  and  then 
a  snow  storm  in  May  and  occasionally  fur- 
nishes all  these  variations,  from  grave  to  gay, 
inside  of  twenty-four  hours.  Nothing,  of 
course,  so  severe  as  the  genuine  Texan  norther, 
in  the  way  of  wind,  and  nothing  so  variable  in 
the  way  of  climate  as  Texas,  where  the  unfor- 


120  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

tunate  Missourian,  sojourning  in  August  under 
a  blazing  sky,  Lad  one  of  his  oxen  drop  dead 
with  the  heat,  and,  stopping  to  skin  it,  was 
overtaken  with  a  norther  which  froze  the  other 
to  death;  nothing,  of  course,  so  bad  as  that,  but 
bad  and  disagreeable  enough. 

We  came  to  this  country  when  young  and 
are  grizzly-headed  now,  and  we  ought  to  be  able 
to  give  points,  if  anybody  can,  on  Colorado  wind 
and  weather,  and  we  have  an  idea  we  can. 
Sometimes  we  think  too  much  has  been  said 
about  our  state  and  climate  as  a  resort  for  in- 
valids; there  has  been  exaggeration,  and  per- 
haps an  exaggeration  of  our  climatic  disadvan- 
tages for  hollow-chested  invalids  without  heart, 
lungs  or  blood  might  in  the  long  run  save  life, 
just  as  Josh  Billings  informs  us  that  thousands 
of  lives  have  been  saved  by  not  swallowing 
pins.  We  may  remark,  then,  that  the  first  thing 
a  confirmed  invalid  needs,  an  invalid,  say, 
who  has  one  leg  already  in  the  grave  and 
scarcely  any  blood  circulation  in  the  other,  is 
plenty  of  winter,  spring  and  summer  clothing. 
Three  complete  suits  of  varying  weight  for 
winter,  three  for  spring  and  three  for  sum- 
mer— only  nine  in  all.  Change  your  clothing 
according  to  actual  need,  three  times  every 
day.    In  normal  weather  in  Colorado  it  is  cold 


OUR  CLIMATE.  121 

in  the  morning  at  all  seasons  of  the  year.  When 
you  get  up  in  the  morning  and  feel  a  soft,  se- 
ductive, balmy  atmosphere  all  about  you,  that 
is  neither  cold  nor  hot,  but  simply  delicious  to 
bodily  sensation,  do  not  get  far  from  the  gar- 
den gate  that  day,  for  nature  is  hatching  a 
convulsion  and  this  is  an  abnormal  symptom. 
Do  not  sit  down  in  the  shade  without  a  coat; 
take  a  heavy  overcoat  with  you  when  you  ride, 
whether  in  winter  or  summer.  Do  not  go  in 
swimming  and  play  tag  without  your  clothes, 
no  matter  how  pleasant  the  weather  may  be. 
Go  in  when  it  rains  and  stay  there  until  it 
clears  off;  there  is  plenty  of  time  in  Colorado 
when  the  sun  is  shining,  without  paddling 
around  in  the  wet  on  our  very  few  rainy  days. 
Do  not  worry  too  much  about  fresh  air.  Colo- 
rado air  is  apt  to  be  pretty  fresh  anyway,  and 
will  contrive  to  reach  you  some  way.  You  do 
not  need  to  sleep  with  your  window  open  dur- 
ing a  blizzard  in  order  to  get  air. 

By  following  these  few  simple  directions 
the  confirmed  invalid,  who  is  going  to  die  pretty 
soon  in  any  case,  as  sure  as  shooting,  may  live 
comfortably  here,  perhaps,  longer  than  in  any 
other  climate;  but  the  man  with  one  lung 
should  not  go  on  a  round-up,  nor  ride  broncho 
horses,  nor  run  foot  races,  nor  climb  high  moun- 


122  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

tains,  nor  play  base  ball.  He  ought  to  take 
moderate  exercise  in  pleasant  weather,  and 
take  it  easy,  and  stay  in  the  house  when  the 
wind  blows  or  when  it  occasionally  snows  or 
rains.  He  should  take  the  advice  named  on 
the  California  saloonkeeper's  sign;  it  read  as 
follows : 

"Make  yourself   comfortable   and   enjoy   yourself 
while  you  are  alive;  for  you'll  be  a  long  time  dead." 


THE   LATE    N.    C.    MEEKER.  123 


OHAPTEE  XVI. 

THE  LATE   N.   0.    MEEKER. 

The  realization  of  our  fondest  dreams  per- 
mits us  but  the  merest  sip  of  the  cup  of  antici- 
pated bliss.  Our  mightiest  efforts  are  wasted 
to  ourselves. 

The  discoverer  of  a  new  world,  now  peo- 
pled by  millions  of  the  human  race  from  every 
civilized  land  of  the  old  and  destined  to  de- 
velop all  that  is  possible  in  the  growth  of  man, 
died  in  disgrace,  discredited  by  court  and  coun- 
tryman at  home,  and  the  new  land  which  his 
genius  had  divined  and  his  restless  energy  and 
undying  zeal  had  revealed  to  his  fellows,  bears 
for  all  time  the  name  of  another. 

The  composer  of  the  one  universally  be- 
loved of  the  domestic  songs  of  men  died  at  last 
in  a  foreign  land.  And  he  has  recorded  of  his 
wanderings  on  other  shores  that,  walking  alone 
and  discouraged  in  the  streets  of  the  gayest 
capitals  of  Europe  by  night,  he  had  listened  to 
the  strains  of  "Home,  Sweet  Home,''  floated  to 
him  from  the  open  windows  of  grand  mansions 
and  gilded  saloons  and  uttered  from  joyous 
throats,  in  every    continental    tongue,    while 


124'  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

himself  had  neither  fortune  nor  home  of  his 
own. 

Moses,  the  leader  of  his  people  through 
the  wilderness,  perished  on  the  borders  of  the 
promised  land  and  never  entered  in. 

Virtue  is  its  own  reward  and  the  records 
tell  no  other. 

These  are  the  inevitable  conclusions  of  ob- 
serving, thinking  minds,  and  to  all  who  are 
accustomed  to  read,  to  reason  and  reflect  it 
need  not,  therefore,  appear  as  a  singular  se- 
quel of  the  Colonial  movement  which  centered 
in  Greeley,  that  not  one  of  the  leading  spirits 
of  the  organization  reaped  pecuniary  profits 
from  the  enterprise.  Such,  indeed,  were  the 
results,  and  even  of  those  who  became  promi- 
nent through  after-management  of  affairs,  few 
added  materially  to  their  worldly  possessions 
through  connection  with  the  Colony. 

Mr.  Pabor,  our  first  Colonial  secretary,  was 
said  to  have  come  here  comparatively  well-to- 
do  in  the  world,  but  he  severed  his  connection 
with  us  a  poor  man,  and  whatever  he  may  pos- 
sess at  this  time  is  due  entirely  to  after-effort 
elsewhere.  General  Cameron  only  possessed, 
it  was  understood,  a  moderate  amount  of  this 
world's  goods  when  he  arrived,  and  it  is  well 
known  that  he  took  away  with  him,  when  he 
finally  left  us,  less  than  he  brought. 


THE    LATE    N.    C.    MEEKER.  125 

Mr.  West  had  a  snug  little  fortune  when  he 
came  here  and  for  a  time  he  seemed  to  in- 
crease it,  but  a  too  sanguine  faith  in  the  new 
country  led  him  to  invest  liberally  and  the  de- 
pression of  values  soon  following  swept  his 
accumulations  away. 

Mr.  Meeker  had  from  years  of  patient  toil 
in  his  profession  saved,  as  near  as  I  have  been 
able  to  ascertain,  about  $15,000.  But  the  re- 
sult is,  to  our  own  people  at  least,  well  known. 
His  means  were  very  soon  swallowed  in  the 
inevitable  expenses  incidental  to  moving  and 
settling  in  a  new  country  and  in  establishing 
the  Greeley  Tribune,  which  for  several  years 
after  did  not  pay  expenses.  As  a  result,  he 
soon  became  seriously  involved,  and  the  fatal 
appointment  to  the  agency  of  the  Ute  Indians 
at  White  river,  brought  about  through  the  so- 
licitations of  influential  friends,  was  only 
sought  and  accepted  b}^  Mr.  Meeker,  as  he  him- 
self told  me  shortly  before  the  massacre,  be- 
cause the  general  depression  in  the  business 
of  his  profession,  about  that  time,  had  tem- 
porarily thrown  him  out  of  regular  employ- 
ment, and  it  had  seemed  to  him  that  there  was 
really  nothing  else  he  could  do  to  save  his 
home  and  the  little  property  he  had  left. 

Mr.  Meeker  made  a  number  of  serious  mis- 
takes in  pecuniary  matters,  which  he  told  me 
afterward,  he  could  then  clearly  see,  but  which 


126  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

he  said  were  perfectly  consistent  with  certain 
principles  he  had  imbibed  in  his  earlier  years 
and  entirely  in  accordance  with  what  he 
thought  was  right  and  proper  in  his  position 
as  president  of  the  Colony.  He  remarked  that 
he  built  a  house,  which  at  the  time  was  a  sort 
of  an  experiment  and  which  cost  him  enor- 
mously in  proportion  to  its  real  worth,  because 
labor  was  then  so  high  and  building  material 
so  dear.  But  he  said  that  at  the  time  he  did 
so  it  seemed  absolutely  essential  that  some 
one  of  the  leaders  of  the  enterprise  should 
build  something  in  the  way  of  a  home  dwell- 
ing which  would  show  f^ith  in  the  country 
and  an  intention  to  make  the  place  the  home 
they  were  recommending  to  others. 

Then,  too,  he  said  he  committed  another 
serious  error  in  neglecting  to  get  hold  of  a 
good-sized  tract  of  farming  land.  This,  he 
said,  was  attributable,  in  a  great  measure,  to  a 
theory  he  had  long  held,  that  no  man  should 
own  land  which  he  did  not  intend  to  use. 

"I  was,"  said  he,  "consistently  opposed  to 
ownership  of  large  bodies  of  land  for  specu- 
lative purposes,  and  as  I  had  no  intention  of 
engaging  in  general  agriculture,  as  a  means 
of  supporting  myself  and  family,  I  contented 
myself  with  the  small  tract  of  land  where  I 
now  reside."  Then  he  went  on  to  say  that 
this  was  a  mistake  and  an  error  in  judgment, 


THE   LATE    N.    C.    MEEKER.  127 

and  that  there  was  really  no  good  reason  why 
he  should  not  have  profited  with  the  rest  of  us 
in  the  rise  of  prices  in  land,  to  which  we  had 
all  in  common  contributed  by  our  labors. 

'  Mr.  Meeker  had  for  so  many  years  previous 
to  his  participation  in  the  Colonial  movement 
been  engaged  in  the  newspaper  business  that 
it  was  perfectly  natural  he  should  look  to  the 
founding  of  a  paper  here,  as  his  legitimate 
part  in  the  labors  of  the  community.  But  he 
underestimated  the  difficulties  of  establishing 
a  local  journal  in  a  small  place,  where  the  com- 
petition is  almost  always  out  of  all  proportion 
to  the  patronage,  and  it  is  not  at  all  strange 
that  the  paper  was  a  bill  of  constant  expense 
for  many  years. 

It  is  well  known  to  all  who  are  familiar 
with  early  Colonial  affairs  that  Mr.  Meeker 
was  ambitious  of  political  honors.  In  particu- 
lar he  aspired  to  represent  the  community  he 
had  been  so  largely  instrumental  in  bringing 
together,  in  our  general  assembly.  To  aid  him 
in  this  pardonable  and  laudable  ambition  he 
possessed  at  all  times  the  persistent  and  de- 
voted support  of  those  who  knew  him  best.  But 
Mr.  Meeker  was  perhaps  of  all  men  the  far- 
thest from  the  possession  of  the  arts  of  the 
mere  politician,  and  he  always  failed.  Long 
familiarity  with  books  and  a  confirmed  habit 
of  mental  preoccupation  acquired  for  him  an 


128  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

air  of  reserve  and  an  impatience  of  all  idle  and 
trifling  conversation,  so  conducive  to  famil- 
iarity with  the  crowd,  on  which  the  profes- 
sional politician  depends  for  his  support,  that 
shut  him  off  from  contact  with  a  majority  of  his 
fellows.  Too  proud  to  plead  his  own  claims  to 
public  honor  and  distinction,  too  busy  to  daw- 
dle, too  serious  to  jest,  too  conscientious  to  flat- 
ter, too  honest  to  deceive,  he  had,  too,  a  blunt, 
direct  way  of  approaching  a  subject  or  a  man, 
which  tended,  sadly  enough,  to  repel  strangers, 
to  embitter  foes  and  too  often  to  provoke  the 
best  of  friends.  But  underneath  the  apparently 
cold  exterior,  only  occasionally  lighted  by  a 
sly  twinkle  in  his  gray  eye,  or  slightly  modified 
by  the  habitual,  half  pitiful,  half  cynical  smile 
on  his  grave  countenance,  there  beat  a  warm 
heart,  always  in  accord  with  the  best  interests 
of  the  people  and  capable  without  effort  of 
sacrificing  personal  ends  for  the  public  good. 
Had  we  possessed  the  sound,  discriminating 
common  sense  to  have  humored  his  reasonable 
hopes,  he  might  possibly  sometimes  have  erred 
in  judgment,  but  w^e  would  have  known  him  to 
have  been  absolutely  devoid  of  selfish  motive, 
and  we  may  feel  sure  that  in  honoring  him  we 
should,  even  in  a  greater  degree,  have  done 
honor  to  ourselves. 

By  many  of  Mr.    Meeker^s    acquaintances 
and  friends  he  was  considered  in  a  measure  im- 


THE   LATE    N.    C.    MEEKER.  129 

practicable  and  visionary  in  his  views  of  men 
and  things  in  every-day  life,  but  this  was 
largely  owing  to  the  fact  that  his  vision  was 
adapted  to  a  long  range  in  its  scope  and  made 
him  sometimes  oblivious  of  smaller  objects  at 
his  feet.  In  all  the  larger  and  more  important 
transactions  of  life  he  possessed  unusual  sa- 
gacity and  foresight.  He  repeatedly  prophe- 
sied a  railroad  up  the  Platte  and  Poudre  rivers 
within  ten  years  of  the  settlement  of  Greeley, 
and  I  remember  that  the  prediction  at  the  time 
seemed  to  me,  and  many  others,  extremely  im- 
probable of  fulfillment;  if  ever,  certainly  not 
in  our  time.  But  it  has  been  years  and  years 
since  the  predicted  roads  were  constructed  and 
in  steady  operation. 

At  a  time  when  the  prospects  in  and  around 
Greeley  were  none  of  the  brightest,  a  friend 
in  New  York,  entrusted  him  with  a  few  hun- 
dred dollars  to  invest  for  him,  and  Mr.  Meeker 
promptly  bought  the  side  hill  above  No.  3, 
just  south  of  town.  To  a  large  share  of  those 
having  knowledge  of  the  transaction  at  the 
time  it  seemed  an  act  of  stupendous  folly. 
Making  some  little  pretentions  to  practical 
knowledge  of  land  values  myself,  I  went  to 
Mr.  Meeker,  with  whom  I  was  from  the  first 
on  unusual  terms  of  intimacy,  if,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  anyone  can  be  said  to  have  ever  been 
intimate  with  him,  and  I  asked  what  in  the 


130  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

name  of  common  sense  induced  him  to  throw 
away  good  money  for  himself  or  for  anyone 
else  on  such  a  worthless  piece  of  property; 
but  instead  of  being  angry  with  me  he  merely 
replied,  with  cheerful  confidence,  that  the  land 
would  be  all  under  ditches  in  a  few  years  at 
most,  and  then  its  close  proximity  to  Greeley 
would  render  it  very  valuable.  I  remember 
quite  distinctly  that  I  thought  a  fool  back  in 
New  York  had  very  appropriately  parted  with 
his  money,  and  I  had  the  opportunity  a  few 
years  later  to  tell  the  party  of  my  first  impres- 
sions, when  he  came  out  to  look  at  his  land, 
just  then  brought  under  the  Greeley  and  Love- 
land  canal,  and  now  become  worth  probably 
twenty  times  its  original  cost. 

When  Mr.  Greeley  issued  his  famous  call 
for  the  organization  of  the  Colony,  it  must  have 
been  read  by  at  least  half  a  million  people, 
who  were  able,  if  willing,  to  embark  in  the  en- 
terprise. But  to  499,000  of  these  it  undoubtedly 
appeared  a  visionary,  foolhardy  undertaking,  in 
which  all  who  invested  would  suffer  great  pri- 
vations and  lose  their  money.  Some  six  hun- 
dred restless,  enthusiastic  cranks  judged  the 
scheme  feasible  and  practicable,  put  their 
money  in  it  and  succeeded,  and  now  people 
who  in  1870  would  have  refused  the  town  site 
at  |1,000  have  confidence  enough  in  the  struc- 
ture our  faith  has  reared  to  put  up  |20,000 


THE    LATE    N.    C.    MEEKER.  131 

blocks  on  fifty-foot  lots.  Such  is  the  innate, 
far-reaching  shrewdness  of  men  in  their  esti- 
mate of  the  future  and  is  probabilities. 

Mr.  Meeker's  right  to  the  credit  of  being  the 
founder  and  originator  of  the  Colony  has  some- 
times been  called  in  question,  and  particularly 
since  he  is  dead  and  unable  to  speak  for  him- 
self. It  has  been  said  that  Mr.  Greeley  thought 
himself  entitled  to  the  credit,  and  also  that  John 
Russell  Young  thought  it  properly  belonged 
to  him.  There  is,  however,  very  little  reason 
to  believe  that  either  of  these  persons  ever 
made  direct  claim  to  the  credit,  and  it  is  of  the 
least  consequence  in  the  world  if  they  did. 
The  plain  and  obvious  facts  in  the  case  are 
neither  more  nor  less  than  these:  Mr.  Gree- 
ley, it  is  true,  was  widely  known  to  the  indus- 
trial classes  in  all  the  states  and  had  taught 
the  theory  of  co-operation  in  labor  in  his  writ- 
ings for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  in 
the  columns  of  his  journal;  in  particular,  he 
urged  young  men  to  come  West  and  leave  the 
competition  of  the  crowded  cities.  But  there 
was  not  for  months  and  years  previous  to  Mr. 
Meeker's  call  any  hint  that  he  had  a  definite, 
a  special  or  any  immediate  project  in  view 
looking  to  Colonial  settlement. 

Mr.  Meeker  was  widely  known  as  a  corre- 
spondent of  rural  affairs,  and  it  is  not  prob- 
able that  there  was  at  that  time  a  man  in  all 


132  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

the  ranks  of  journalism  whose  opinion  as  to 
the  merits  or  demerits  of  any  section  of  the 
country,  in  any  state  in  the  union,  would  have 
possessed  the  weight  of  that  of  N.  C.  Meeker. 

John  Russell  Young  was  at  that  time  about 
as  well  known  to  the  after-members  of  the 
Colony  as  was  the  czar  of  Eussia.  Those  of 
us  who  knew  him  at  all  knew  him  as  a  mere 
literary  man,  whose  opinion  of  the  practica- 
bility of  the  Colonial  scheme,  had  we  known 
that  he  had  anything  to  do  with  originating 
the  idea,  would  have  possessed  about  as  much 
weight,  with  most  of  us,  as  would  the  views 
of  a  chairman  of  a  precinct  or  ward  committee 
in  any  densely-populated  city.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  was  not  known  to  one  in  a  hundred 
of  us  that  he  had  anything  to  do  with  the  or- 
ganization of  the  Colony  whatever.  The  ma- 
jority of  us  knew — and  if  there  was  more  than 
this  to  know,  events  proved  the  knowledge 
unnecessary  to  the  success  of  the  enterprise, 
and  it  is  certainly  irrelevant  now — that  Mr. 
Meeker  issued  the  call,  signed  his  name  to  it, 
said,  "/  wish  to  unite  with  others,'^  etc.,  in- 
stead of  saying  ''we,^^  and  that  there  were  no 
other  names  associated  with  him  in  the  call, 
or  subscribed  beneath  it. 

It  is  an  old  and  long-recognized  theory  of 
operations  in  peace  and  war  that  the  credit 
belongs     where     responsibility     rests.        Mr. 


THE    LATE    N.    C.    MEEKER.  133 

Meeker  issued  that  call,  signed  it  and  was 
solely  responsible  for  it,  and  it  is  useless  and 
futile  to  go  behind  these  facts.  We  might  just 
as  well  question  Sherman's  credit  for  the  fam- 
ous march  to  the  seas,  or  Grant's  for  the  battle 
of  Appomattox,  as  to  call  in  question  Mr. 
Meeker's  title  to  the  credit  for  the  Colonial 
scheme.  Of  course,  it  was  a  great  aid  in  se- 
curing confidence,  that  Mr.  Greeley  indorsed 
the  organization;  of  course  there  were  others 
who  helped.  But  what  Mr.  Greeley  or  Mr. 
Young  might  have  thought,  said  or  advised  in 
the  matter,  in  talks  with  Mr.  Meeker,  either 
before  or  after  the  fact,  cuts  the  smallest  pos- 
sible figure  now,  when  we  are  discussing  the 
chief  credit;  so  let  us  have  no  more  nonsense 
about  that.  Honor  to  all  to  whom  honor  is 
due  and  to  N.  C.  MEEKER,  THE  FOUNDER 
OF  UNION  COLONY. 

A  few  weeks  previous  to  the  fatal  event 
which  terminated  the  lives  of  Mr.  Meeker  and 
his  associates  at  the  agency,  he  paid  a  hurried 
visit  to  Greeley  on  business  connected  with 
his  office  and  the  Indians,  and  while  here,  al- 
though he  had  little  time  to  spare,  he  expressed 
a  wish  to  go  out  into  the  country  under  canal 
No.  2  and  take  a  look  at  the  farms  and  the 
improvements  which  had  been  going  on  in  his 
absence.  We  procured  a  team  and  went  out 
together.    The  renewed  and  steady  growth  of 


134  COLONIAL   DAYS. 

the  community  which  has  been  marked  and 
rapid  ever  since  that  time,  had  already  set  in, 
and  changes  for  the  better  were  visible  every- 
where. The  hardships  of  the  first  years  of 
settlement  had  been  endured  and  survived,  the 
dreaded  grasshopper,  whose  devastating  visits 
from  '72  to  '76  had  discouraged  the  stoutest 
hearts  among  us,  no  longer  ravaged  our  fields. 
The  trees  had  seemingly — to  Mr.  Meeker — more 
than  doubled  in  size,  in  the  short  period  he  had 
been  gone.  Little  streams  of  water  glistening 
in  the  sunshine  fell  with  pleasant  murmuring 
sound  from  dams  and  flumes,  and  rippled  under 
bridges  as  we  passed  them  on  the  way.  Broad 
fields  of  waving  graia  lined  the  roadside  and 
plots  of  alfalfa,  even  then  becoming  common, 
dotted  the  landscape  with  spots  of  charming 
emerald  green.  Country  and  town  were  al- 
ready beginning  to  assume  the  air  of  perma- 
nent and  increasing  prosperity.  Mr.  Meeker 
was  delighted.  During  the  morning  he  had 
been  recounting  to  me  the  financial  difficulties 
under  which  he  had  been  laboring;  the  diffi- 
culties to  which  allusion  has  already  been 
made,  and  which  had  enveloped  him  previous 
to  his  appointment  to  the  agency  at  White 
river,  and  the  increasing  troubles  he  was  meet- 
ing in  the  management  of  the  Indians,  and  the 
dark  shadow  of  impending  disaster  to  him- 
self and  family  had  been  hanging    gloomily 


THE   LATE    N.    C.    MEEKER.  135 

over  his  brooding  spirits.  Now,  however,  his 
eye  brightened  with  the  unfolding  of  the  mag- 
nificent view  before  us,  and  he  expressed  sur- 
prise and  pleasure  at  everything  he  saw.  As 
we  neared  the  bluff  overlooking  the  town,  and 
the  housetops  and  spires  again  burst  upon  our 
view  above  the  dense  foliage  of  the  trees,  he 
said :  "After  all.  Max,  although  the  enterprise 
yielded  me  nothing  in  return,  in  a  worldly 
sense,  yet  I  am  proud  to  have  been  the  leader 
in  such  a  movement;  it  will  be  counted  an 
honor  to  every  man  who  took  part  in  the  set- 
tlement of  Greeley.  I  am  more  than  compen- 
sated in  the  grand  success  of  the  undertaking 
itself  and  I  have  nothing  to  regret.'' 


136  COLONIAL    DAYS. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

PROPHECY  AND  FULFILLMENT — 1870  AND  1900 

"Individuals  may  rise  and  fall — may  live  or 
die — property  may  be  lost  or  gained;  but  the  colony 
as  a  whole  will  prosper,  and  the  spot  on  which  we 
labor  shall,  so  long  as  the  world  stands,  be  the  center 
of  intelligence  and  activity.  Great  social  reforms 
leading  to  the  elevation  of  mankind  move  as  if  di- 
rected by  destiny.  It  is  the  vast  future  more  than 
the  brief  present,  that  is  to  be  benefited;  hence  sym- 
pathies and  feelings  are  of  little  moment,  and  the 
cause  moves  on  as  if  animated  by  a  cold  life  of  its 
own.'' — First  issue  Greeley  Tribune,  November  16, 
1870. 

Prophetic  vision.  It  was  Mr.  Meeker  who 
made  it.  The  Colony  had  been  the  dream  of 
years  and  he  had  staked  everything  on  the 
dream.  "May  live  or  die;"  he  died.  "Property 
may  be  lost  or  gained ;"  he  lost.  "But  the  Col- 
ony, as  a  whole,  will  prosper;"  it  did.  The 
movement  was  indeed  of  larger  import  than 
any  man's  life;  of  greater  consequence  than  any 
man's  fortune;  and  thus,  "the  cause  moved  on." 

When  the  locating  committee  selected  the 
present  cite  of  Greeley  for  the  center  of  the 
Colonial  enterprise  in  the  spring  of  1870,  Weld 


PROPHECY  AND  FULFILLMENT — 1870  AND  1900.      137 

county  had  an  area  of  10,000  square  miles  and 
a  population  of  1,316,  according  to  the  census 
report.  It  has  since  that  day  been  divided  and 
subdivided,  until  out  of  its  original  territory 
there  have  been  carved  five  additional  coun- 
ties, each  of  which  contained  in  1890  a  greater 
population  than  Weld  county  had  in  1870. 
Meantime  v^e  had  increased  our  own  popula- 
tion to  12,000  in  1890  and,  according  to  the  cen- 
sus of  1900,  have  now  a  population  of  16,808. 

Space  will  not  permit  a  review  in  detail 
of  each  step  in  the  wonderful  progress  made 
since  that  early  day;  of  the  long  struggle  we 
had  over  the  water  supply,  after  we  had  learned 
how  to  use  the  water;  of  the  little  then  known 
concerning  the  rights  of  prior  appropriation, 
until  our  experience  and  our  demands  formu- 
lated the  theory  into  Colorado  law,  which  now, 
through  multitudinous  court  decisions,  gov- 
erns the  water  distribution;  how  little  was 
known  of  scientific  irrigation,  until  we  had  at- 
tained it  and  became  a  model  for  other  sec- 
tions; how  little  was  known  of  capacity,  meas- 
urement or  the  duty  of  water,  until  we  made 
the  tests  and  others  accepted  our  conclusions. 
All  these  things  long  since  came  to  pass  and 
have  made  us  famous  everywhere.  Hundreds 
of  miles  of  laterals  now  link  together  the  bar- 
ren ridges  and  valleys  of  1870,  in  one  continu- 
ous cultivated  garden.      In  their  season  fields 


138  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

of  emerald  green  of  almost  unlimited  extent 
gladden  the  eye  from  every  elevation.  Great 
squares  of  wheat  and  oats  and  alfalfa  delight 
the  passerby  on  every  thoroughfare,  and  fields 
of  potatoes  of  astonishing  size,  with  rows 
which  fade  from  the  vision  in  the  distance,  are 
seen  on  every  hand.  The  horned  toad,  the 
prairie  dog  and  the  owl  have  retired  to  the  sand 
hill  and  the  plain  beyond.  The  wolf  only  yelps 
at  us  from  a  distance  as  we  pass  him  by,  and 
the  robin  and  the  dove  build  nests  in  our 
groves.  Yes,  Mr.  Meeker's  dream  has  been 
realized,  although  he  did  not  live  to  see  it; 
"And  the  cause"  still  "moves  on."  We  found 
this  place  a  desert  and  we  have  made  it  a  de- 
lightful land.  Whoever  permanently  resides 
here,  if  temperate  and  industrious,  may  bask 
in  fortune's  smile.  Whoever  leaves  the  place, 
for  w^hatever  reason,  of  choice  or  necessity, 
sighs  to  return.  Whoever  participated  in  that 
movement,  resulting  in  this  achievement,  may 
forever  feel  proud  of  his  part. 

Thirty  years — just  think  of  it!  How  short 
the  interval  seems  since  we  gathered  here,  from 
almost  everywhere,  to  try  the  experiment  and 
help  Father  Meeker  to  realize  his  dream.  We 
can  span  the  gap  between  1870  and  now  with 
a  single  quickened  thought,  and  it  "seems  to 
us  but  yesterday"  since  we  arrived  on  the  bar- 
ren plain  where  Greeley  now  stands.    And  yet, 


PROPHECY  AND  FULFILLMENT — 1870  AND  1900.      139 

if  we  indulge  in  prolonged  retrospect  it  seems 
an  age;  and,  in  fact,  by  the  simplest  of  calcula- 
tions we  find  that  we  have  been  here  nearly  an 
average  lifetime.  We  came  here,  a  majority  of 
us,  young  men  and  women,  just  entering  upon 
the  great  sea  of  life,  and  children  were  born  to 
us  and  have  been  reared  to  maturity  and  are 
married  and  have  children  of  their  own.  The 
boy  born  in  1870  and  later,  has  gone  from  under 
the  parental  roof  and  is  at  the  head  of  a  new 
and  "native''  colony.  The  sire  of  Colonial  days 
has  become  the  grandsire  and  the  infant  daugh- 
ter, whose  mother  rocked  the  cradle  and  sang 
her  to  sleep  and  dreams,  now  in  turn  rocks  the 
cradle  and  sings  for  the  grandchild. 

Oh,  how  we  toiled  in  those  early  days.  How 
we  delved  and  dug  and  struggled  and  wrestled 
with  the  adverse  circumstances  which  for  years 
environed  the  little  settlement  here.  How  we 
skurried  along  the  ditches  and  hurried  back  and 
forth  at  our  labors,  trying  to  wring  subsistence 
from  a  long-dormant  and  reluctant  soil.  And 
we  thought  by  day  and  dreamed  by  night  only  of 
the  future.  The  past  was  precious,  but  we  had 
left  it  behind.  The  present  was  as  nothing,  for 
we  discounted  it  for  a  better  day  beyond.  Ah, 
how  temporary  we  all  regarded  the  arrange- 
ments we  were  making  in  those  early  days;  for 
very  few  of  us  imagined  we  should  make  this 
a  permanent  home.    By  and  by,  when  we  had 


140  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

accumulated  a  fortune  and  had  the  leisure  to 
sit  down  and  enjoy  life,  we  would  go  back  to  the 
dear  old  land  and  take  our  places  there,  just  as 
though  we  had  never  left  it.  But,  bless  our 
innocent  souls,  we  builded  better  than  we 
knew,  and  here  we  are  to-day,  after  a  little  in- 
terval of  pretty  nearly  a  third  of  a  century,  at 
last  regarding  the  country  we  improved  and 
the  city  we  builded  as  our  permanent  abiding 
place.  Yes,  here  we  are  and  here  let  us, 
those  who  are  left,  remain  in  the  peaceable 
possession  and  enjoyment  of  the  fruits  of  our 
labors;  pleasant  homes,  rich  farms,  good  so- 
ciety and  good  schools,  until  the  vicissitudes  of 
earthly  existence  or  the  infirmities  of  age  shall 
call  each  of  us  in  turn  to  join  Meeker  and  Cam- 
eron and  Flower  in  another  land  beyond. 

"Justusa  little  sunshine;  just  a  little  rain; 
Just  a  little  happiness;  just  a  little  pain; 
Just  a  little  poverty;  just  a  little  gold; 
And  the  great  eventful  tale  of  life  is  told." 


BACK    TO    THE    OLD    PLACE.  141 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

BACK   TO   THE   OLD   PLACE. 

Once  in  every  faithful  Mussulman's  life- 
time, it  is  said,  he  must  make  a  pilgrimage  to 
Mecca;  across  the  river,  the  ba}^,  the  seas,  the 
ocean,  the  mountain,  the  valley,  the  plain,  to 
worship  at  the  tomb  of  the  departed  saint. 
Once,  too,  before  he  departs  this  earth,  will 
every  pilgrim  who  has  wandered  across  the 
deserts  to  these  western  lands,  turn  his  face 
eastward,  and,  if  possible,  visit  the  home  of  his 
youth  and  the  familiar  scenes  of  his  childhood; 
the  Mecca  ncA^er  to  be  forgotten  in  the  rest- 
less nights  and  the  toilsome  days  since  he  left 
it;  some  sentimental  shrine,  in  niche  or  nook,  on 
hillside  or  by  brookside,  or  in  wooded  dell,  kept 
green  in  the  memory  through  long  and  event- 
ful years. 

Such  a  Mecca  had  I  in  the  old  homestead 
at  Baraboo,  Wisconsin,  down  near  the  "lit- 
tle red  school  house,''  in  the  old  Kimball- 
Clark-Jeffry-Crawford  neighborhood  of  long 
ago;  and  such  a  shrine  I  knew,  up  among 
the  bluffs  of  the  little  brook,  along  whose 
banks  and  amid  its  tangled  tag  alders,  wil- 
lows and  poplars,  which   lined  its   sides,  the 


142  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

boys  of  that  early  time  wandered  bare-footed 
and  hunted  squirrels,  pheasants  and  rabbits. 
There  were  at  first  Marion  Crawford  and  my- 
self and  Newton  Clark  below  for  comrades,  but 
only  Marion  and  myself,  being  near  neighbors, 
for  bosom  companions.  There  was  Zoath  Bai- 
ley of  the  "bluff,''  also,  and  other  boys  up  there 
among  the  neighbors  of  that  region,  at,  seem- 
ingly, an  immense  distance  through  the  tim- 
ber; the  Protheros,  the  Brewsters,  shadowy  be- 
ings to  our  youthful  imaginations,  who  at  in- 
tervals of  time  decended  into  the  valley  with 
oxen  and  wagons,  going  to  the  "county  seat." 
Afterward  came  the  Bakers,  the  Glovers,  the 
Paines  and  the  Kimballs,  but  I  am  dwelling 
with  the  earlier  settlers  now,  from  '52  to  '55, 
the  period  of  the  old  log  school  house,  before 
the  "little  red  school  house"  came  into  being. 
And  so  I  had  gone  back  after  an  absence  of 
thirty  years,  to  visit  my  Mecca  and  to  pay  my 
devotion  at  my  shrine  in  the  hills.  I  thought 
to  go  back  during  the  Centennial  at  Philadel- 
phia, but  a  hail  storm  took  forty  acres  of  wheat 
for  me  and  hope  was  deferred.  I  made  sure, 
long  in  advance,  that  I  would  go  back  during 
the  Columbian  exposition  at  Chicago,  but,  lo, 
the  panic  of  '93  set  in,  the  banks  closed  their 
doors  and  rain  stared  me  in  the  face,  along  with 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  others;  and  with  an 
empty  purse  and  a  sick  heart  I  gave  up  the 


BACK   TO   THE   OLD    PLACE.  143 


visit  once  more.  But  at  last  the  suspense  was 
over,  sacrifices  made,  results  summed  up,  sit- 
uation discussed  between  myself  and  wife  and 
the  pilgrimage  begun. 

We  had  visited  the  old  homesteads  together, 
but  I  had  reserved  the  shrine  for  a  lonely  walk 
by  myself  on  another  occasion.  Then  I  bor- 
rowed a  horse  and  buggy  from  my  cousin 
Emma  and  drove  slowly  up  the  creek  beyond 
the  old  Asa  Wood  place;  the  little  farm  that 
I  had  purchased  of  my  uncle  after  the  close 
of  the  war,  and  where  my  wife  and  I  went  to 
housekeeping  in  the  spring  of  1866.  Hills  all 
there,  looking  very  natural,  although  the  heavy 
timber  that  once  covered  their  sides  is  now 
largely  gone.  Brook  shrunken  to  insignifi- 
cance, that  in  all  the  time  we  lived  there  we 
had  no  suspicion  could  ever  for  a  day  go  dry. 
Then  I  reached  the  lime  kiln,  told  Mr.  Glover 
that  I  used  to  live  in  that  neighborhood  a  small 
matter  of  thirty  years  before,  and  that  I  had  a 
little  pilgrimage  to  make,  before  I  died,  up 
among  the  hills  there,  and  how  far  could  I  go 
up  with  a  horse  and  buggy?  Not  far,  he  said, 
on  account  of  the  fences  crossing  the  narrow 
valley,  but  he  kindly  offered  to  show  me  the 
way.  No,  I  thanked  him,  there  was  a  spot  up 
there  that  I  wanted  to  see,  a  break-way  in  the 
hills  and  bluffs  bordering  the  creek  bed,  but  I 
thought  I  could  find  it  without  difficulty  alone. 


144  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

He  understood  me;  lie  said  that  he,  too,  had 
made  a  pilgrimage,  a  few  years  since,  ^^back  to 
the  old  place,"  and  I  passed  on.  Presently  I 
tied  my  horse  and,  proceeding  on  foot,  soon 
reached  the  spot.  An  overhanging  bank  had 
at  one  time  caved  down  into  the  brook  bed  be- 
low and  the  surplus  dirt  being  washed  away, 
left  what  us  boys  called  a  ^^dug  way,"  on  the 
steep  sides  of  which,  with  its  loose  shale  and 
sliding  sand  and  soil  nothing  had  ever  after- 
ward grown.  Hunting  up  in  the  hills  there, 
along  in  1855,  Marion  and  myself  had  carved, 
or  pecked,  our  initials  in  two  smooth-faced 
rocks,  and  setting  them  against  an  oak  tree 
just  at  the  top  of  this  break  in  the  bluff  or 
bank  by  the  brookside,  we  left  them  there. 
Returning  to  the  spot  in  18G0,  after  my  first 
trip  to  the  Rocky  mountains,  they  were  still 
in  position.  Marion  was  with  me;  we  were 
yet  boys,  with  the  glamour  of  youth  and  senti- 
ment hovering  over  every  thought  and  action 
of  our  lives.  It  was  to  be  our  shrine  hence- 
forth; sacred  to  each  in  memory  of  the  other, 
while  life  might  last.  For  we,  who  had  been 
inseparable  in  childhood,  were  going  forth  to 
war. 

I  revisited  the  scene  again  when  I  returned 
in  1865.  The  stones  had  fallen,  but  I  replaced 
them.  Time  had  already  dimmed  the  initials; 
but  I  recut  them.    Marion  was  dead,  and  I  was 


BACK    TO    THE    OLD    PLACE.  145 

alone!  The  shrine  was  now  in  my  keeping  and 
doubly  precious  in  memories  of  the  past. 

I  moved  away  from  Baraboo  in  the  fall  of 
'67,  but  before  leaving  for  nearly  a  lifetime  the 
hills  and  hollows  of  my  childhood  days,  I  vis- 
ited once  more  in  silence  my  shrine  in  the 
woods  and  placed  in  position  for  the  last  time 
the  two  little  tablets. 

And  now,  after  an  absence  of  thirty  years, 
I  was  standing  again  upon  the  brink  of  the 
cleft.  The  tablets  were  gone.  They  might  have 
slidden  to  the  cliff  base  and  become  buried  in 
the  loose  soil  and  gravel  there.  I  dug  amongst 
it,  but  found  them  not.  They  might  have  dis- 
solved in  the  flight  of  years,  in  the  drying 
winds  and  the  beating  rains.  They  might  have 
long  since  been  burned  in  the  lime  kilns  and 
mingled  in  the  plaster  of  a  dozen  different 
homes  : 

"Imperial  Caesar,  dead  and  turned  to  clay, 
Might  stop  a  hole,  to  keep  the  wind  away." 

Ho,  ye  restless  mortals,  who  in  after-years 
may  invade  this  sequestered  nook;  tread  lightly 
here  upon  a  sacred  soil.  Here  youth  and  friend- 
ship plighted  troth  and  this  is  hallowed 
ground  ! 

Duty  to  memory  and  sentiment  had  been 
discharged ;  the  hope  of  years  had  been  accom- 
plished; I  had  worshipped  in  silence  at  the 


146  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

shrine  of  an  early  devotion  and  now  I  would 
depart  in  peace.  I  descended  to  the  bed  of  the 
little  stream  below,  whose  busy  murmur  had 
once  perpetually  fallen  upon  delighted  ears; 
but  only  limpid  pools  dripped  noiselessly  from 
one  to  the  other,  through  the  stones  in  the 
bottom  of  its  channel.  The  birds  that  once 
sang  in  every  bush  and  bramble,  as  I  wandered 
through  its  glades,  were  absent,  or  silent.  The 
pheasant,  whose  muffled  wing  note  then 
boomed  from  among  the  fallen  timber,  was 
neither  heard  nor  seen.  But  the  sound  of  the 
wind,  sighing  in  tag  alders  and  the  poplars, 
fell  upon  a  familiar  ear  and  unseen  spirits 
whispered  of  other  days.  I  thought  of  my  par- 
ents, who  used  to  live  down  the  valley  there, 
near  by,  my  father  then  dead,  my  mother  still 
living,  but  since  passed  away;  of  Uncle  Robert 
and  Aunt  Annis,  the  father  and  mother  of 
Marion,  gone  to  join  the  son  who  preceded 
them.  Of  old  Uncle  Dickey  Clark,  so  long  since 
passed  from  among  the  living  that  few  indeed 
of  the  people  now  there  will  remember  him. 
Of  Tom  Clark,  Newton's  father,  and  Aunt 
Delilah,  his  mother.  Of  the  brisk  and  ener- 
getic Ben  Jeffries  of  that  olden  time,  now  also 
gone,  and  his  good  wife.  Aunt  Martha,  still 
alive.  Of  good,  old  Mother  Bailey  of  the  bluffs, 
who  knew  every  child,  as  if  her  own,  within 


I 


BACK   TO   THE   OLD   PLACE.  147 

miles  and  miles  of  her  door  on  the  top  of  the 
hill.  Of  the  elder  Kimballs,  both  gone  to  their 
final  rest;  and  of  Deacon  and  Mother  Baker 
and  their  son  Abner,  my  comrade  in  war  and 
my  companion  Colonist  in  1870,  all  lying  now, 
side  by  side,  in  the  cemetery  at  Fort  Morgan, 
their  western  home  of  later  years.  Then  bands 
of  spectral  boys  and  troops  of  phantom  girls, 
who  once  made  those  sylvan  abodes  ring  with 
song  and  roar  with  laughter,  passed  in  weird 
procession  before  my  retrospective  vision: 
Abner  and  Edwin,  Lyman  and  Frank,  Guss  and 
Channcy,  Wilburn  and  Ralph,  Lewis  and  Al- 
bert and  Zoath,  Arthur  and  Edgar  and  Horace 
and  Charlie,  Demarius  and  Belle,  Kitty  and 
Libbie,  Millie  and  Hatty,  Alice  and  Celestia — 
spectral  youths  and  phantoms,  all,  because 
long  since  to  men  and  women  grown  or  gone 
beyond  the  silent  river. 

"All  are  scattered  now,  and  fled; 

Some  are  married,  some  are  dead. 
And  when  I  ask  with  throbs  of  pain, 

When  shall  they  all  meet  again? 
The  horologue  of  eternity 

Sayeth  this,  incessantly, 

Forever!   Never!   Never!   Forever!" 

Then,  getting  over  the  fence  and  crawling 
up  into  my  buggy,  I  turned  once  more  to  the 
hills,  the  hollows  and  ravines  of  my  youth,  with 


148  COLONIAL    DAYS. 

their  countless  associations  of  other  days,  and, 
wafted  to  the  breeze,  gently  floating  down  to 
me  from  the  valley  above,  a  silent  adieu : 

Farewell,  thou  peaceful  scene! 

Farewell,  enchanting  vale. 
Farewell!    Farewell!!    Along 

And  last  farewell!!! 


THE   END. 


no2 


.y.-,!?-  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


